This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Alex Merced
Free Resources
- Free Apache Iceberg Course
- Free Copy of “Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide”
- Free Copy of “Apache Polaris: The Definitive Guide”
- 2025 Apache Iceberg Architecture Guide
- Iceberg Lakehouse Engineering Video Playlist
- Ultimate Apache Iceberg Resource Guide
Planning a meetup around Apache Iceberg or modern data lakehouse architectures? Whether you’re looking to host your first community event or expand your existing network, discovering and organizing meetups can be both rewarding and impactful. These gatherings offer an opportunity to connect with other data professionals, share best practices, and explore cutting-edge tools and architectures. In this blog, we’ll explore how to find and collaborate with existing data communities, discover upcoming Iceberg and lakehouse-related events, and provide tips on organizing your own meetup. We’ll also share links to online communities, tools, and platforms to help you build momentum around your event and grow your local or virtual data community.
Step 1: Join the Related Communities
Slack communities for different lakehouse communities are going to be one of the best places to find people to collaborate with. In certain communities there are dedicated channels for meetups that make easier to discover people looking to collaborate in your area
- Data Events Slack Community
- The Data Lakehouse Hub
- Apache Iceberg Slack
- The Apache Polaris Slack
- The Apache Hudi Slack
- Delta Lake Slack
Step 2: Where to collaborate
A good pattern to use is to create a meetup channel if it doesn’t already exist for your area like #meetup-atlanta
and then invite people to join the channel to collaborate on local meetups.
Data Events Slack Community
The Data Events Slack Community is a great place to find people to collaborate with. Here are the existing meetup channels in the Data Events Slack Community:
meetup-argentina
meetup-australia
meetup-brazil
meetup-california
meetup-canada
meetup-chile
meetup-china
meetup-colombia
meetup-colorado
meetup-egypt
meetup-florida
meetup-france
meetup-georgia
meetup-germany
meetup-illinois
meetup-india
meetup-ireland
meetup-israel
meetup-japan
meetup-massachusetts
meetup-mexico
meetup-netherlands
meetup-newyork
meetup-northcarolina
meetup-singapore
meetup-southafrica
meetup-southkorea
meetup-sweden
meetup-texas
meetup-uk
meetup-utah
meetup-washington
Iceberg Slack
Currently in the Apache Iceberg Slack Workspace the following Channels Exist:
meetup-atlanta
meetup-austin
meetup-bayarea
meetup-boston
meetup-chicago
meetup-denver
meetup-nola
meetup-orlando
meetup-seattle
note: There are no other channels for other cities as the ability to make channels was turned off in the Iceberg Slack, my suggestion is make the channel in the Data Lakehouse Hub slack.
Data Lakehouse Hub Slack
Here are the existing meetup channels in the Data Lakehouse Hub Slack:
meetup-atlanta
meetup-austin
meetup-barcelona
meetup-boston
meetup-chicago
meetup-denver
meetup-london
meetup-miami
meetup-munich
meetup-nyc
meetup-nola
meetup-orlando
meetup-san-francisco
meetup-santa-clara
meetup-seattle
Apache Polaris Slack
There is a #meetup-attendee
and #meetup-organizer
channel in the Apache Polaris Slack along with:
#meetup-nyc-austin-boston-atlanta
#meetup-sanfran-seattle-denver-chicago
Step 3: Find or Propose Events
By reading these channels you should be able to discover upcoming Iceberg and lakehouse-related events in your area. If you want to organize an event you can propose an event and see who would want to collaborate in organizing the event.
Step 4: Organize the Event
Naming Your Event
Simplest way to organize your event is under the name X Lakehouse Meetup
where X
is the city or region and you can run the meetup any way you like. For example, Atlanta Lakehouse Meetup
. But if you want to use a name like Atlanta Apache Iceberg Meetup
you can do that but need to follow recently approved guidelines for doing so to avoid trademark issues with the Apache Software Foundation.
- Apache Iceberg should be championed in every meetup and technical session (after all, we’re here to support this technology and our community)
- All talks should be vendor-neutral and not sales pitches (of course vendors can be mentioned, but that should never be the point of the talk)
- Each meetup should have at least two talks with speakers representing different companies/organizations (we need to champion diversity of thought)
- Planned meetups ought to be brought to the attention of the dev list (this is to promote transparency and raise awareness)
These rules include having an open call for speakers prior to the event and decided on the speakers among all event sponsors (and allow others to sponsor the event if they want to).
Organizing the Event
Essentially you have three main costs:
- Venue
- Drinks
- Food
So soliciting people to co-sponsor the event either by sharing the costs of these things or having different sponsorts pay for different things is a good way to organize the event.
All contriuting sponsors should have their logos on the event promotion. You’ll want all these details squared away to allow at least 2 weeks of promotion before the event if not more.
Promoting the Event
You should first either create a meetup or lu.ma listing for the event. For Apache Iceberg meetups there are community run outlets to post your event.
Here are some other Luma Calendars and Meetup Groups you may want to follow for Lakehouse Events:
Meetup Groups
Luma Calendars
Message calendars@datalakehousehub.com to get your event added to these calendars, include link to Luma or Meetup event listing:
- Data Lakehouse Meetups International
- East Cost US Open Lakehouse Events
- West Coast US Open Lakehouse Events
- Lakehouse Linkups
- NYC Data Lakehouse Events
- Orlando Data Lakehouse Events
Social Media
- Make sure everyone involved is posting about the event on linkedin, twitter and blue sky.
Emails
- Sponsors should send emails about the event to their lists if they can, use Luma to email attendees to remind them about the event 7 days, 24 hours and 2 hours before the event with any logistics details they should know. Offering each sponsor a link in these emails to a related blog or asset is a good idea.
Conclusion
Bringing together the Lakehouse and Apache Iceberg community through meetups is one of the most effective ways to foster collaboration, share knowledge, and build meaningful relationships across organizations and regions. Whether you’re organizing your first meetup or joining an existing one, the open and welcoming nature of these communities makes it easy to get involved. By leveraging platforms like Slack, Luma, and Meetup, and by following best practices for organizing inclusive and impactful events, you can help grow the ecosystem and play a key role in advancing open data architectures. So jump into a meetup channel, connect with others, and start planning — your community is waiting.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Alex Merced