If you are a member of Milwaukee Makerspace, you should propose your event to the Board of Directors. Be as specific as possible. Provide a date, start time, end time, as well as any additional dates/times needed for set-up and tear-down. How many people are you expecting? How much space do you need? Are you planning on serving alcohol? (You'll need a license and probably supplementary insurance to do so. You should find this out and provide details to the board with your request.) Do you have staff? You will need to provide people to run your event, as we have no paid staff. (You could attempt to find other members willing to volunteer.) If you need tables and chairs, we do have some of those. If you need nice tables and nice chairs, you may need to provide those. Do you need a kitchen? We do not have one. (We do have a lovely “snack area” though.)

Hosting an event at Milwaukee Makerspace is not impossible, but it can be a challenge. The first thing to remember is that we are a community of makers, and we have over 190 members who love to use the space to make things. Sometimes an event is a chance to show off the things we make, and sometimes it's an inconvenience to our members.

If you are not a member and wish to host an event, it's a little more difficult, as you will need to find a member willing to be the sponsoring host, which basically makes them 100% responsible for the event. They are basically running it for you/with you. Trust plays an important role. (Also note that individual members cannot be compensated in any way for use of the space by an outside organization.)

But… all is not lost! If you are really interested in hosting an event at Milwaukee Makerspace, you should come to the space on a Tuesday night at 7pm for our weekly meeting, and ask to pitch your event to our members. You may find people more than willing to help out with it. If members are involved and want to make it happen, we can take the next steps.

If you're just looking for a venue that you can write a big check to and magically have all the hard work happen, that's not us. There are venues in Milwaukee that are much better suited to hosting large events than we are, and some of them even have paid staff, and parking, and nice tables.