Several people have made the same comment and it's especially important for people who are new to the scene and don't know many people. It's something that I would definitely like to improve and welcome all suggestions. I'll post an update with pub details on the event page too.
I also attended some HN meetups in Munich and those worked very well. You show up, you talk to people. The organizers set aside a short time for anyone who wanted to talk about their project to do so, apart from that it was just a meetup, focused on the attendees rather than pre-prepared content.
Setting aside 10 slots of 30 seconds (or min) each to pitch to the room on what they are working on may help people connect and find like minded people? kind of like show and tell..
