What are the elements of a successful watch meet up?

[FrequentTrain]

Hello,

I live in a Midwest city where other major smaller or similar sized cities have established Redbar groups (each over 2 hours away). I would like to initiate a new group here where I think there would be a lot of interest but have not been to a watch meetup myself. Can anyone provide tips of what works and what doesn’t?

It seems that one aspect is to not generally allow the public to know where the meetup will occur (for obvious reasons) so how do other groups facilitate that aspect?

What kinda of locations work well and what do not?

Are there any formal aspects that people would recommend?

Thanks in advance!