UPDATE: the “Keep Everyone Together” option was added to Meetups in October 2019. Read more about this useful feature here >
Shane’s video below is a great tutorial for this popular Zwift featured:
Zwift Companion 3.0 has just released, and its biggest feature is Meetups: the ability for any Zwifter to organize and lead a group event. This is big news, and it’s going to take Zwift to the next level as a social platform. Here’s how it all works…
Organizing a Meetup
Meetups are organized entirely via Zwift Companion. Click “Events” then tap the trio of people near the top. Time to create a meetup! (Go ahead and give it a try–you can test out most of the features without actually creating the Meetup.)
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- Click “Create Meetup” and get started!
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- Choose your Meetup time, route, and distance, then click to invite friends.
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- You can only invite Zwifters from your followers list
Requesting a Quick Meetup
You can also click any currently active follower and request a meetup directly with them. This is useful for those times when you hop on Zwift and notice a friend riding and want to join them.
Joining a Meetup
Meetups behave like any other Zwift event, so you can RSVP from Companion or the Zwift startup screen. Here’s how the invite appears in Companion:
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- Click blue message to learn about the meetup
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- Click to RSVP
Once you are in-game you will be notified when the Meetup is starting, and you will be taken to a starting area to wait for your group. Once the ride begins you will see the usual progress meter at the top of your screen. Members of your meetup have a green highlight in the riders list so they stand out nicely.
Any in-meetup chat is visible only to those in the meetup. Nice!
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- You’ll get the standard event popup.
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- If you organized the Meetup, you get the leader beacon!
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- Off and riding!
Important Details
There are a few important limitations in this first iteration of Meetups:
- You can only invite people who follow you. This was a decision made by Zwift to limit spamming and let the Meetups feature be tested by smaller groups before it expands.
- You are limited to inviting 50 followers (for the same reasons above)
- You can only ride on the course (world) scheduled at the time of your meetup
- Meetups can be scheduled up to 7 days in advance
- There is no late joining of meetups
- You can only create three meetups per 24 hours period at this time. So be careful if you’re messing around with creating meetups, because the system will lock you out after three!
Zwift sees the massive potential of Meetups, but they want to make sure the features are stable and user-friendly before expanding. This is a smart move for sure.
Future Functionality
The core functionality just released is quite powerful, but there is certainly more to come for Meetups. Expanded features I can envision include:
- Easy invites: a unique URL you can easily to share to let others join your ride without being followers
- Off-calendar rides: give Meetups access to every route in Zwift
- Culled riders: this feature already exists for events, but it would be nice if organizers could set Meetups to hide all other riders except those in the group
- Audio chat: sure, we have Discord. But wouldn’t it be great if we could easily voice chat with those in our Meetup?
- Event types: let organizers define what type of event this is. Can we do a group workout? How about a race, where a leaderboard is shown at the end?
- Late join: we all have “that friend” who shows up late to every ride. An option to allow late joining for your Meetup would be nice.
I’m excited about the new Meetups feature, and I know there’s even more to come.
What do you think of the new Meetups feature, and what additional functionality would you like to see? Please share your thoughts below!
I have tried zwift meet up twice and failed
Do you sit and wait on companion or zwift ?
preferably both – you need to be on Zwift to ride in any case, the companion is handy for communicating once the ride starts.
If you join the meetup (by invite) the software will ask you if you want to join the meetup – assuming you are already riding before the meetup. If you accept, you will placed at the meetup start with the other riders.
If you have joined the “event” or meetup from t he invite, a “join” banner will appear (lower left on my PC) about 5 mins before meetup time. When the clock ticks off tp 0…you’ll be moving as soon as you pedal.
3 people were in the meet up today, and then all of a sudden two people turned left and the 3rd went straight ahead. In going straight ahead the 3rd rider dropped out of the meet up….. and then the meet up was no more…….. Strange that this happened give then meet up was set to stick together
I use it continualy all monday and it works great. we are hapy with it. I have just one note- there aren´t availible all routes (for example Jungle circuit)
All future funcionalities sounds greate – it will be amazing.
Thanks
Thanks for this Eric, I’ve been a number of Meetup rides now, and they’re great. I missed one by being late, so I agree with whoever suggested late joining facility. Also, it’d be great if after the event, we could view stats of in game sprints and hill climbs for a bit of banter post ride.
Thanks for the site anyhow.
Can the leader in a Meetup turn and go up and down a hill several times. Then all the other people that are joining need to turn to?
No, you can’t navigate in a Meetup.
Hello and thanks for this post !
some quick questions though:
how does drafting work in meetups ? what about meetups when everyone sticks together ?
Can you go to a meetup with a tt bike ?
thanks !
Drafting in Meetups works just like free riding on Zwift. But if you do the “keep everyone together” option, drafting is tweaked so that riders stay together.
You can do a Meetup on a TT bike, yes. You won’t receive any draft benefit if you do that.
thanks !
but if the meetup has the keep together option and you go with a TT bike, does that mean the option will not work for you ?
[…] I tried my first meetup in Zwift. Here is a how-to from Zwift Insider if you want to try it out too. A couple of things I learned, if your friends are late even 1 second […]
Eric do you know what happens if the organiser doesn’t show for a meet up he’s organised? Thanks Steve
The ride goes as planned, there just isn’t anyone with the yellow beacon.
Hello, I’m in my 7 days try out. I have tried twice to join a meetup. It didn’t work. No message at start of meetup… Is it just for full membership?
No, it should work for everyone. Are you riding in Zwift when it’s time for the Meetup to start? You need to actually be in there, not waiting on the startup screen.
Eric, is there a time limit for the invitation to be accepted? Is the user able to participate in the event if he accepted the invitation with less than 15 minutes to go before the event starts?
I don’t think there’s a limit.
It happened with 4 guests, and the only thing in common between them, was the fact that they accepted the invitation with less than 15 minutes to go before the event
I’ve done meetups setup 5 minutes before start time, and all attendees were joined. Must have been a glitch for you
[…] How to join a Meetup […]
This is great! Can I organize a meet up now and then keep adding people later as they follow me?
Yes, you can do that Laura!
[…] [Taken from Zwift Insider here: https://zwiftinsider.com/meetups/ %5D […]
Hi Eric, what happens in a distance meetup, without the everyone together if the rider finishes first? will everyone behind still be able to finish and get a time?
I assume you’re asking what happens if the lead rider finishes first? It’s fine – the meetup still continues as normal.
Hi! how can I create a meet up and share my custom workout?
How soon for culling other riders in meetups? We were in a meetup today and got mixed in with a giant group ride and it was disastrous. The group ended up spread eagle all over the road.
If Zwift is shutting down new events, at a time when everyone is confined indoors and packing the virtual roads, then culling isn’t an option.
culling needs to be an option, I meant.
Can you add additional people to an invite after you have created the meetup?
Yes you can! Just to go edit the ride, add them, and then save at the bottom
I have tried to use meet-up but with very poor results; 2 out of 3 were able to join but the other could not. I tried to create a new meet-up but that failed too, then a third. Then I find there’s a limo of 3 a day. Useful, if would only work. Only found the video just now.
If I select a route for a meetup, what happens when I complete the route distance and considering I selected a distance longer than the route. Will I turn around and go back, or will I be heading to a different route?
Neither. You’ll do another lap of the same route until you hit your distance goal. So you’ll just stay on that route, as long as it takes…
Event types would be nice. Is there any way I could figure out results so that I could put on a race among friends?
Hello. Eric is it possible to schedule 3 meetup at the same time and date? So one will be able to lead 150 zwifter.
No. Because you only be in one Meetup at a time.
When riding with friends in a meetup, should I still be getting credit for completing a new course (e.g. course completion badge)? I’m asking because I haven’t received a badge for the last two meetups that I have completed and they were both new courses to me.
Yes, you’ll still get badges. You’re probably not riding far enough. Have to ride the leadin plus the whole route to get it. Generally finishes by going through a start/finish arch.
In a meet up, can the person who is the beacon for the ride who organised the meet up make directional changes and the group will follow? So for example, if you chose the Pretzel course and then part way around you decide you want to deviate off this route with the whole group can the leader make changes and take the group somewhere else?
Nope. You’ll stay on whatever route you chose, until you leave the Meetup.
Hi Eric, Is it possible to choose a custom workout and still Meetup and stay with your friends?
A few times in a meetup, i’ve been waiting in the corral and other riders “start” ahead of me – by as much as 15-18 seconds. Wazzup?
[…] world. So our local weekend warrior cycling group decided to combine the two using the Zwift Meetup function and Zoom meetings! While not perfect, these “Zoom Meetups” are easy to set up and a fun new […]
I’ve now tried joining groups three times with no success. The first time, I was a few seconds late (can’t join late, so lesson learned). The second time, it appeared I was connected to the group, at the starting point early, but when the time came, my avatar didn’t move. I checked my sensors (all were connected), but I couldn’t start the ride. I finally exited the meetup and rode with one of the people in the ride. The problem with this is no automatic navigation, so after missing a turn requiring far too long to recover, I was dropped.… Read more »