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Bonfire - Discover local events happening around you

Bonfire helps anyone host and discover real-world events without needing a social media following.

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🔥 About Bonfire

Inspiration

Social platforms today make connection feel effortless, yet real-world meetups are harder than ever to organize. Events often revolve around follower counts, private groups, or existing social circles, leaving out people who simply want to bring others together.
Bonfire was inspired by this gap — the need for a neutral, community-first space where anyone can host an event and anyone can show up, without clout, algorithms, or social pressure.

We wanted to answer one simple question:
Why should meeting people in real life require an online audience?

What Bonfire Does

Bonfire is a platform that lets users host, discover, and join real-world events — from casual chai meetups and football games to treks, open mics, and workshops.

Key ideas behind Bonfire:

  • No follower or friend-count barrier to hosting events
  • Equal visibility for events based on relevance, not popularity
  • A focus on intent and attendance, not likes and shares

Bonfire turns online plans into offline participation.

How We Built It

Bonfire was built as a full-stack web application with a strong emphasis on simplicity and scalability.

  • Frontend: React / Next.js for fast, responsive UI
  • Backend: Node.js with REST APIs for event creation and discovery
  • Database & Auth: Cloud-based backend for user management and event data
  • Maps & Location: Geolocation support to surface nearby events
  • AI Layer: Intelligent assistance for event descriptions and recommendations

Each event is ranked using a weighted relevance score based on proximity, timing, and user interest.

EventScore = (α × Distance) + (β × TimeRelevance) + (γ × InterestMatch)

By tuning these weights, Bonfire ensures that nearby and timely events aligned with a user’s interests are surfaced, while smaller community events remain discoverable instead of being overshadowed by popularity.

Challenges We Faced

  • Designing discovery without relying on social graphs or follower counts
  • Preventing popular events from overshadowing smaller, community-driven ones
  • Balancing simplicity for hosts with enough detail for attendees
  • Building trust and intent in offline-first interactions

Each challenge pushed us to rethink default social-platform patterns and prioritize fairness and accessibility.

What We Learned

  • Real-world communities grow when barriers are removed, not optimized for engagement
  • Event discovery works best when relevance beats popularity
  • Small UX decisions can heavily influence whether people actually show up
  • Building for offline impact requires a very different mindset than building for online engagement

What’s Next

Bonfire is designed to scale from campus communities to cities and eventually global neighborhoods.
Future plans include:

  • Smarter recommendation models
  • Host verification and reputation systems
  • Group-based recurring events
  • Mobile-first experiences

Bonfire is not about building another social network.
It’s about making real connections happen again.

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