What city you in? Some cities are more vibrant than others. London Hackerspace is huge (>300 members??), with a pay-what-you-want policy for membership.
London Hackerspace seems to be modelled a bit like noisebridge. Lots of people, maybe too many people to make socializing all that easy because there are so many subsets.
Edinburgh Hacklab open to public twice a week. Edinburgh is a relatively small city (~800k people), so distributing everyone over the week would not be so good. Also our membership is relatively expensive (£25). So our model is about a smaller group of dedicated hackers with stronger social ties. Small means we can keep our expensive equipment running without feeling like a public service.
Newcastle Hackerspace is pretty awesome too. They are bigger than Edinburgh with a pay-what-you-want. They have a mobile CNC they bring to field events!
Maybe we in the UK are not as good as Austrians at organising regular events ("an average of 1 event per night at Metalab"). But equipment wise metalab has a similar standard of tooling as all the above have.
What city you in? Some cities are more vibrant than others. London Hackerspace is huge (>300 members??), with a pay-what-you-want policy for membership.
London Hackerspace seems to be modelled a bit like noisebridge. Lots of people, maybe too many people to make socializing all that easy because there are so many subsets.
Edinburgh Hacklab open to public twice a week. Edinburgh is a relatively small city (~800k people), so distributing everyone over the week would not be so good. Also our membership is relatively expensive (£25). So our model is about a smaller group of dedicated hackers with stronger social ties. Small means we can keep our expensive equipment running without feeling like a public service.
Newcastle Hackerspace is pretty awesome too. They are bigger than Edinburgh with a pay-what-you-want. They have a mobile CNC they bring to field events!
Maybe we in the UK are not as good as Austrians at organising regular events ("an average of 1 event per night at Metalab"). But equipment wise metalab has a similar standard of tooling as all the above have.