LinkedIn Professional Events Scraper for Apify

A specialized Apify actor designed to scrape professional networking events from LinkedIn by city using cookie authentication. This scraper focuses on finding business conferences, networking events, industry meetups, and other professional gatherings.

🍪 Cookie Authentication Method

This scraper uses LinkedIn session cookies to maintain authenticated access. This method is more reliable than password-based login and avoids 2FA issues.

How to Get Your LinkedIn Cookies:

1. Log into LinkedIn in Chrome or Firefox
2. Open Developer Tools (Press F12)
3. Navigate to Application Tab → Cookies → linkedin.com
4. Find the li_at cookie (this is your session cookie)
5. Copy the cookie value (a long string starting with "AQ...")
6. Paste it in the scraper's liAtCookie input field

Optional: Also copy the JSESSIONID cookie for better stability

Cookie Validity:

• LinkedIn cookies typically last 1-2 months
• If scraping stops working, get fresh cookies
• Keep your browser session active to maintain cookie validity

Features

• 🏙️ City-based search: Search for professional events in any city
• 🏷️ Multiple event categories:
  • Professional Networking
  • Business Conferences
  • Industry Meetups
  • Career Development
  • Startup Events
  • Tech Talks
  • Leadership Summits
  • Sales & Marketing Events
  • Finance & Investment Events
  • Entrepreneurship Events
• 📅 Date range filtering: This week, This month, Next 3 months, or All upcoming
• 🌐 Event type filtering: Online, In-person, Hybrid, or All
• 📊 Detailed event data extraction:
  • Event title and category
  • Date and time
  • Location and venue
  • Organizer information
  • Number of attendees
  • Event description
  • Event URL and image
• 🔄 Pagination support: Automatically navigates through multiple pages
• 🛡️ Proxy support: Built-in Apify proxy configuration

Installation

Local Development

cd linkedin-events-scraper
npm install

Deploying to Apify

1. Install Apify CLI:

$npm install -g apify-cli

2. Login to Apify:

$apify login

3. Push the actor:

$apify push

Usage

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description	Default
location	String	Yes	City to search for events (e.g., "San Francisco", "New York")	-
eventCategories	Array	No	Categories of professional events to search	["Professional Networking", "Business Conference"]
searchQuery	String	No	Additional keywords for search	"professional networking"
dateRange	String	No	Date range for events	"This month"
maxEvents	Integer	No	Maximum number of events to scrape (1-100)	20
eventType	String	No	Type of events (All/Online/In-person/Hybrid)	"All"
includeDescription	Boolean	No	Scrape full event descriptions	true
proxy	Object	No	Proxy configuration	Apify proxy with RESIDENTIAL group

Example Input

{
  "location": "San Francisco",
  "eventCategories": ["Professional Networking", "Tech Talks", "Startup Events"],
  "dateRange": "Next 3 months",
  "maxEvents": 50,
  "eventType": "In-person",
  "includeDescription": true
}

Output Format

The scraper outputs data in the following format:

{
  "title": "SF Tech Professionals Networking Night",
  "category": "Professional Networking",
  "date": "January 15, 2025",
  "time": "6:00 PM - 8:00 PM",
  "location": "San Francisco, CA",
  "city": "San Francisco",
  "venue": "TechHub SF",
  "organizer": "SF Tech Network",
  "attendees": "127 attending",
  "eventUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/events/...",
  "imageUrl": "https://media.licdn.com/...",
  "description": "Join us for an evening of networking with tech professionals...",
  "eventType": "Professional",
  "price": "Free",
  "speakers": "John Doe, CTO at TechCorp",
  "detailsScraped": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2025-01-10T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Running the Scraper

Local Testing

$npm start

On Apify Platform

1. Go to your actor in Apify Console
2. Configure the input parameters
3. Click "Run"
4. View results in the Dataset tab

Professional Event Categories

The scraper intelligently searches for various types of professional events:

• Professional Networking: Business networking events, professional mixers
• Business Conference: Industry conferences, business summits
• Industry Meetup: Sector-specific gatherings, professional communities
• Career Development: Career growth workshops, skill development sessions
• Startup Events: Entrepreneur meetups, pitch nights, startup networking
• Tech Talks: Technology conferences, developer meetups
• Leadership Summit: Executive conferences, management forums
• Sales & Marketing: Growth conferences, marketing summits
• Finance & Investment: FinTech events, investment summits
• Entrepreneurship: Founder meetups, business launch events

Technical Details

• Built with Playwright for dynamic content handling
• Uses Cheerio for HTML parsing fallback
• Implements multiple extraction strategies for reliability
• Handles LinkedIn's various page layouts
• Includes retry logic and error handling
• Supports concurrent scraping with rate limiting

Limitations

• LinkedIn may require authentication for some features
• Rate limiting may apply for large-scale scraping
• Some event details may require visiting individual event pages
• Results depend on LinkedIn's search algorithm and available data

Error Handling

The scraper includes comprehensive error handling:

• Automatic retry for failed requests
• Fallback extraction methods
• Graceful degradation when details aren't available
• Detailed logging for debugging

Support

For issues or questions, please create an issue in the repository or contact support through Apify.

License

ISC License