We honestly want as many people to enjoy our events as possible, but sometimes we have to limit the number of people that attend for various reasons.
Sometimes meetups are "Closed" to new RSVPs, meaning you are not able to RSVP to the event. Sometimes meetups are "Full", meaning the maximum number of people that can attend have RSVPed.
Often this is because we have reported the number of attendees to the venue, and cannot add more people. Sometimes this is because a venue can only hold a certain number of people, and adding more people will create issues for the location and/or photographing.
If a meetup is "Closed", and the location is private, anyone choosing to show up anyway will be turned away and may have their membership in HPW revoked. If the location is a public space, we cannot prevent you from showing up anyway, but one of three things will happen: you will be reported to meetup for violating the "RSVP Crashing" policy, you will be marked as a "no-show", and/or you will be removed from the group.