I was wondering if any of you have ever gone to a meetup with fellow fans before, and if so, how did it go?
For me, I only ever meet fellow VK fans in line at concerts. Living in LA, I’m sure there are other fans out here, but I never know how to meet up.
If not meetups, how have y’all met fellow fans irl?
I’m open to ideas.
In Germany (and me living in Berlin) it was even pretty common for a while in the 2000’s, I think. I’ve been there once or twice, even though I already knew some people.
It was in a bigger room and more to the walls there were some tables, where some people sold flyers, picks, probably mags and some other stuff I don’t remember. I also don’t remember about the rest.
The first people I met was when I started learning Japanese in school. I had seen them before at lives a few times and immediately recognized when they arrived for the first lesson. We didn’t live far apart so we often met.
Aside from this there’s the NeoTokyo in Berlin and back then it was mainly about Japanese stuff. Once or twice a week some of us met there because it’s located halfway in the middle of the city so that was a good place for everyone to go. Some of the others knew others so meeting new people happened more or less by itself. The rest happened at lives as well as meeting those again who didn’t happen to go to the NeoTokyo as often.
But that’s been long ago and I don’t know about anything from the 2010’s on.
I was about to write the same. I am also from Berlin and attended some of the infamous “BeViTs” (Berlin Visu Treffen =Berlin Visu meet up).
Good old times 
I knew some people before I went to these meet ups through a german anime/japan forum and I also dragged two of my friends with me into vk hell, so I just created fellow fans I could meet. Also made a very close friend in the waiting line for Moi dix Mois.
This exactly was what I was describing up there.
And I remember more, just slightly.
I’ve been visiting a friend outside of Munich in spring 2008 and the day I arrived and she picked me up in Munich there was something similar in some kinda park or so and we went there first before we took another train to where she was living.
And in 2006 there was some thing in Münster like going to a club (it started in the evening) where they played lots of VK music. But that was a one-time thing for me, I went there with someone who I just had met online shortly before and we’ve been friends for a while after.
In the years around 2010 I went to a few organized meetups in Germany during anime/manga conventions. It was always a pretty cool experience because there were a lot of VK cosplayers with amazing self-made costumes. It was pretty easy and fun to connect with others. Everyone always took a huge group picture together which is pretty cool.
Otherwise I only really ever met people while waiting before concerts. Those were good experiences too.
No and I wouldnt. 
Here in the southern part of Hungary in the early 2000s it seemed a bit hopeless to meet any fellow VK/J-rock fans at first, but luckily I got introduced to the online forum of the local anime club, where it turned out there were some Japanese music fans too. So I started visiting the anime club where I had some fun experiences and got to know some nice people (some of whom I still have contact / meetups with to this day, although a lot less due to everyone’s life changing in those 20 or so years, etc.).
From then on, it was easy to find the country-wide J-music community on the excellent Sound of Japan forum, and strike up acquaintances there and the semi-regular VK parties the admins where organizing and hosting / DJ’ing in Budapest where finally we could meet in person with all the cool peeps we’ve been interacting online with (I also understand the capital city did have some sort of VK fan meetup adjacent to one of their anime clubs, just like in my hometown). Sadly the VK parties turned more and more into K-pop / more mainstream J-rock / anime themed parties over the years, so the underground rock streak kinda died out a bit, but there is still a spread-out audience for it (I just don’t know how or where to engage with them these days, haha). Thankfully, I still have some of the “core people” I know from back in the day, and we see each other once in a blue moon.
Accidentally in Tokyo, although a very small one
Was in a second hand CD shop that had a huge VK section, met a few people who where big fans / collectors. Spent a good hour talking in the store, then decided to go get drinks. The 4 of us drank late into the night discussing VK, twas magical lol. Could never do something like that in my own country.
I’m a member of a couple of expat Facebook groups where I live (Seoul, South Korea), so I just make a post asking if anyone is interested in rock, goth fashion, visual kei, or any other “alternative” scenes that would like to make a group chat. Quite a few people responded, and turns out one of them was a long-time Madmans Esprit fan. A couple of us went for drinks beforehand and then went to the concert together. We live in different areas, but we also try to attend other rock or metal gigs when we find them and do other weeby/subculture-y stuff.