New to town: finding authentic meetup groups and turning chats into plans.

[Donald.H]

I recently moved to a new city for work and I'm finding it really challenging to make friends outside of my office, so I've been looking into joining some local community meetups to meet people with similar interests. I've signed up for a few generic "social mixer" events through online platforms, but they often feel forced and it's hard to have a meaningful conversation in such a large, noisy setting. For people who have successfully built a social circle through meetups, how did you find the right niche groups that felt more authentic, and what's a good approach for transitioning from a casual event chat to actually making plans to see people again outside of the scheduled meetup? I'm interested in things like hiking, board games, or book discussions.