Go with your crew

A public event's guest list is the whole city, which tells you nothing about who you're actually going with. A crew is that missing layer: the handful of people you're going as, tucked inside the bigger event.

Crews are offered on public events only. On a private, open, or network event the guest list is already a group somebody put together, so there's nothing to carve out.

A crew and the event's chat

Where somebody is hosting, the event has a chat of its own that everyone going can read, and your crew's chat sits beside it. Both are on the event, labeled, and posting in one never reaches the other.

A venue listing is the exception, because nobody is running it: there's no event-wide chat there at all, so the crew's chat is the only one and the event's chat control opens it.

Start one

1. 1On the event, tap Invite your crew. (Waved that card away? Start a crew is still in the event's overflow menu.)
2. 2Name it if you like. The name carries to the crew's chat, so it reads apart from the event's.
3. 3Pick people from your Orbit, or a whole cluster at once. They join when they accept.

If the card isn't for this one (a public event that's really just your friends), tap the X. It stays gone for that event, and you'll still be offered a crew at the next thing.

What a crew carries

• A chat of its own, separate from the event's, in your Talk inbox like any other thread.
• A meetup note from whoever started the crew: where you're meeting, what time, which door.
• Its own prep. Bring lists, to-dos, a poll, song requests, the same tools the event has, scoped to just you lot. On the Prep tab, an Event and Crew switch says which set you're looking at.
• Its own photos, on the same switch. The crew's shots stay with the crew.
• All of that opens up once somebody else is in it. While a crew is just you, there's nobody to share with, so what you add stays on the event where everyone can see it.

On a run of nights

When the event runs across more than a day, the crew names its own date. On a run with real showtimes you pick one of them; on something simply open for weeks (an exhibition on view until January) you name a time inside the run. On an ordinary one-night event there is nothing to ask, so nothing is asked.

Setting the crew's date doesn't move anybody's RSVP. People answer for their own nights, and a crew host isn't going to change that on their behalf.

Any member can invite more people or rename the crew. The meetup note belongs to whoever started it.

Leaving

Any member can leave a crew quietly. If you started it and there are still people in it, you're asked what happens next: hand it to someone by name, or end it for everyone. Ending it takes the chat, the lists, the polls, and the crew's photos with it, so it asks plainly first.

If you're hosting

Guests at your public event can form crews, and you won't see them: not the chats, not the lists, not the photos they keep to themselves. Your own chat, prep and gallery are unchanged, and everyone going can still read them. There's nothing to switch on or off.