so i went to my first real drone meetup last month after hearing everyone talk about how great they are and honestly it was kind of underwhelming. dont get me wrong the people were nice enough but half the time was just standing around talking gear and watching one person fly at a time. felt more like a car show than actually flying. maybe i went to the wrong one? idk. maybe bigger events are different but this one was like 8 dudes in a parking lot

lol parking lot meetups are the worst. the good ones are usually the ones organized around an actual flying site with some space. i've been to a few that were genuinely awesome, simultaneous group flights, a little informal racing, someone always has something new and weird to fly. but yeah a lot of them are exactly what you described, mostly just gear talk and one dude hogging the airspace

tbh the talking is half the point for me. hard to find people locally who are into this stuff so even standing around a parking lot jawing about motors or whatever is kind of nice. but i get it if you came to actually fly