This was my third Wednesday dinner club series after hosting the first series in London during the summer and the second series in Hong Kong this past fall. Here are a few stats and reflections about this iteration of the experiment now that it’s over. 

• Sent out about 30 WhatsApp invitations
• Hosted 20 unique diners over 3 dinners with an average of 7 people per meal (including me)
• More than 1 day-of cancellations per dinner (highest of all locations)
• 90% had never been to one of my dinners before (higher than both London and Hong Kong, but expected since I knew basically no one when I arrived)
• I met about half of the participants directly or indirectly via my coliving space, the other half were a mix of direct introductions and people I met on my own at both public and private events
• Only 5% of the guests had never met me before (much lower than London or HK, by design – I didn’t encourage people to bring guests because of the limited space)
• Didn’t track the percentage of repeat guests in CDMX because I didn’t offer the option to attend more than one dinner, again because of space limitations

Many of my qualitative reflections below are also based on comparisons between these dinners and the ones I hosted in HK and London. 

Experience

Even though I hosted the CDMX dinners at an Airbnb and not MY home, it still felt slightly nicer than the rental space in HK. Not sure if the design of the space or the fact that we were also outside (same as London) made the difference, but it felt more unique. I decided not to co-host the dinners in CDMX even though my network here is much smaller than Hong Kong. The main reason was that since I hosted the dinners in my last month here, I wouldn’t have had time to follow up and build meaningful connections with the new people I met at these dinners. In HK I had a month after the dinners to reconnect and build relationships with my friend’s friends. Interestingly, people were much more likely to participate in Mexico City and London than Hong Kong (HK had the lowest acceptance rate at 58%). My hunch is that my relationships are more “fresh” in both CDMX and London (regardless of whether they are strong or weak ties). It’ll be interesting to see if the HK acceptance rate improves this coming fall.

Efficiency

In general, people in CDMX tend to be the most short term in their planning and travel even more than HK. Regardless, it was still easier to organise the dinners as a set rather than one by one. Interestingly, I invited everyone via WhatsApp in CDMX, which was not the case for London or HK. I also set up WhatsApp groups before the dinners for coordination, which was handy and allowed people to connect with each other like in HK. My co-hosts in HK invited their guests via WhatsApp, so maybe I’m just a bit old school :p. Still sent out the summary via email though, didn’t I ;]?  

Costs

When all was set and done, the CDMX dinners cost about 120 pesos/person, which made them cheaper than Hong Kong but about the same as London. However, I didn’t bake cakes for these dinners, which might have made the difference. Fresh produce and cheese are surprisingly expensive here and the quality is lower than both London and Hong Kong :/. Regardless, this continues to be an extremely accessible and cost effective way of connecting with my network providing I have a space to host. 

If you’re interested, you can compare this summary to the ones for Hong Kong or London. Happy to share more details if you have any questions. Look forward to doing this again when I’m back in Mexico City next year!