Rendezvous Club

for a basic description of the event and locale, please see Joshua’s good write up. I am in the 45 – 55 range and attended one of these events several months ago. should have written then. .. anyway — things were indeed well organized and the room was pleasant enough. the night I went I think there were 10 men and 10 women. what became imminently clear ass the night progressed was that several of the men (i’m a woman by the way) were seat fillers — by their own admission. apparently they get called in (either at a reduced price or for free) when there aren’t enough bums to fill seats.
this meant that about ¹⁄₃ of the men were not actually there to meet people — at least not with any view to any potential meet again. .. they were all pleasant enough and the event certainly had potential to be quite enjoyable. .. that wasn’t a problem. but it was really disappointing (especially at $ 50 a seat) to be meeting gents who weren’t really choosing to be there.
oh, and the one fellow who was mutually interested came clean when we met that he was actually 10 years older than the age range advertised. .. . not cool!
so, 2 stars for organization and location. .. otherwise, not recommended

Rendezvous Club operates speed dating events in Vancouver and Victoria. Some friends and I decided to bite the bullet and attend one of their recent events. This is our story.
In case you’re not familiar with how it works: 15 women sit at assigned places. 15 men come in and sit down opposite them. They chat. After 5 minutes, the men get up and shift over one place to the right. Chat for 5 more minutes. Shift again. This goes on until everybody has had a 5 minute «date» with everyone else. At the end of the night, you write down the people that you would like to see again, and if they also select you, you each get an email with the other person’s contact information.
These guys (or guy, I should say. The dude who runs this business was there and he managed the whole event by himself) were extremely well organized. Every dater gets a printed list of their dates for the evening, a name tag with their name on it, a sheet for taking notes, clipboards and pens if necessary, and a free drink ticket. They also give you a list of ice-​breaker questions… which is handy, as anyone who has had to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger will tell you. The event was 2 hours long, with a 15-​minute break, during which there was a small spread of free appetizers (I didn’t want to risk it. Knowing me I’d come back to the tables with all kinds of stuff stuck in my teeth).
There were more guys than girls, so at some point, every guy had to take a 5 minute time out. I used this time to talk to the organizer. They apparently do these events every week, rotating through different age groups (ours was 25 – 35, but there’s a 30 – 40, a 40 – 50, and a somewhat distastefully named «cougar» event — men 25 – 31, women 31 – 40. That one was supposedly very popular…). Every once in a while they hold a premium event, which is more like a facilitated party with a comedy show and ice-​breaker games and so on. He claims they sell out just about every time.
I have to admit it was a little exhausting towards the end, and I feel bad for the last couple of women I talked to… I was winding down at that point.
This event was a lot of fun. The Vancouver events are mostly at the Sin Bin on West 2^nd ave. Rendezvous Club’s website gives the same address as Sin Bin, so I guess they are based out of there. I can’t say much about the bar itself, since we were in a separate party room in the back.
One thing that I find shocking, however, given how low-​capital it must be to run these events: the price tag. A regular ticket to a regular speed dating event is $ 50, and their other special events can be more. My friends and I had Groupons, which means we only paid $ 20 each, which is more in line with what I would be willing to pay for this. In fact the organizer told me that their Groupon spot got some unusually low visibility and he sold way fewer Groupons than he expected… although since he doesn’t seem to have a problem filling the seats, it probably works in his favour.