I don't think I'd have done it, honestly, if I hadn't started working at Meetup. It's the kind of thing that does take time to organize, but I really wanted to discover what Meetup organizers go through. It's been all kinds of rewarding, fun and great though! Highly recommend it! Let me know if I can help!
It's not that much in all honesty, but then again, I already have a place to meetup (at Meetup, which also provides us beer and regular drinks). All in all it's probably about 5 hours a month, in addition to about an hour total for setup and teardown the day of the event.
But, this of course would be a hell of a lot more stressful and time consuming if I had to beg for a place to host it that can hold 40-50 people, and find sponsors to get drinks and things.
Also, I can't imagine how much harder it would be if I wasn't using Meetup. Now, I work there, so you might think "Oh, he's just promoting his product" but, it has been instrumental in my success so far. It's worked well for promotion (there are emails that go out for topic alert lists, and we're often a "trending" meetup due to RSVP patterns), as well as member management, and communication. I ask people to talk about what they'd like to present as part of the RSVP process, for instance. And, if we needed to pay for a venue, or food, or something else, charging people $5 to RSVP is dirt simple to do and collect, manage etc from Meetup. (Sorry for the shameless promotion, but as an organizer, it really does work)
That said, there are certainly successful groups in NYC that have a standing meetup once a month, that aren't run via Meetup--just Google Groups, so it's certainly possible to do. It depends on the group who you're attracting, etc.
