I've only been to two meetups. The meetup was a regular monthly meet held at a local bar/pub and they often go to a restaurant for a meal later. It's a fairly big/busy bar, so nobody in there cares why you're meeting up. You just look like a group of friends meeting up for a drink. Having spent many years organising shit for various things, hiring venues etc, I like this low key, low effort kind of organising!