10 Tips and Tricks for Hackathon Success

by Adam Benzion/Hackster Co-Founder

After planning and executing around 20 hardware hackathons for the past 2 years, I regularly get asked for useful tips & tricks that others can use. Naturally, I just had to create this list for you to binge off. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the party!

1. Let’s start with the basic logistics: Food. At the average weekend hackathon, people expect to be fed three-meal days, including snacks.

• Tip: Focus on healthy food — your participants will take notice and appreciate it.
• A daily routine: Breakfast buffet, sandwich lunch, hot buffet dinner.
• Coffee/Tea: Arrive 1 hour before everyone else does. Coffee is the first complaint of the day when not readily available early.
• Snack bars: Fruit, protein bars, water, no candy, no soda. We never served toxic energy drinks. Meh.
• Reusable mugs will solve your plastic and trash problem. Give them as swag when users register and ask them to clearly mark them with their names.
• Speaking of trash, it will overflow and it will get gross. Stay on top of it with extra bags and removal routes. Staying clean is glamorous!

2. Venue & Event Operations: Make sure your desired location has configurable seating and can legally host such events.

Tip: Soldering produces smoke — some places fire codes do not allow this — check early.

• Wi-Fi: Security, encryption, not enough ports will ruin your events.
• Make sure Wi-Fi security can pass authentication with devices, not just laptops.
• 2.4GHz is good, 5GHz not so much. Some devices don’t seem to like the latter.
• Make sure the venue’s IT staff is present during the event. There will be pain and you will need help — guaranteed.
• Rule of ports: Three per attendee (laptop, phone, device). Do the math.
• Power: Each team should have at least one dedicated power strip
• PA/projector. Test it. It never works as planned, and Mac users, don’t forget your Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter.
• Set up tables and make goodie bags before the event starts.
• Create an event flow document: Here’s an example
• Create a fun kickoff deck, here’s a nice example.
• Welcome participants and distribute swag upon arrival (like a nice reusable mug).
• Welcome mentors and judges.
• Be there to answer questions.
• Share the event on social media in real-time.
• Mention partners and sponsors in your social media posts (they love this and will want a recap).
• Take pictures. Share on social, all day, every day with ONE #tag so you can track it.
• Follow schedule! Don’t fall behind.
• Rarely there will be negative people joining your event — if so, get rid of them fast!

3. Managing People: You’ll need helpers, judges and facilitators to lead the event.

• Tip: Your MC who kicks off and leads the event should be charismatic, confident and comfortable
• Other key individuals you may need are technical volunteers, mentors, judges and at least one keynote speaker.
• It’s a great idea to reward speakers and volunteers for their efforts with a gift or extra goodies!
• Consider that some participants may require special accommodations.

Will the event be kid-friendly? Smart people seem to have smart kids and they like to hack together. We recommend to accommodate the young and bright, every time.

4. Registration Process: Your event should have a dedicated microsite for information and registration

• Tip: We recommend Eventbrite — charge at least $10/person to commit, avoid no-shows. See example.
• Giving away t-shirts? Ask for size during registration.
• Communicate with registrants often: pre-event, skills, downloads, tools, expectations and pre-reading.
• Ask for dietary restrictions during the registration process.
• Set up your Hackster projects page before the event page is shared.

5. Hackathon Promotion: The more time you have, the better! Start at least 60 days prior to your event. 90 days is best!

• Tip: A hackathon’s #1 disappointment is low attendance — over book and assume 50% no-show.
• Reach out to meetup groups, municipalities, universities and hackerspaces.
• Social media and newsletter: Weekly and daily push
• Final reminders one week and 24 hours before the event.
• Facebook groups and paid campaigns can be extremely effective.
• Share discount codes to special groups and influential participants.

6. Hardware

• Focus on ready kits, like those from Seeed Studio and SparkFun’s inventor kit.
• Equipment: Scopes, soldering stations, clips, glue guns, measurement tools
• Spare parts: resistors, etc. (must have a rich parts library on hand)
• Make sure the corresponding software is up-to-date and working properly.
• New technology or hacks can be exciting, but is there a way to connect what you have to the real world?
• Themes (such as medical advances, security, defense, or other applications) can be extremely useful. If you can tie this into a partner or sponsor, even better!

7. Swag

• Tees. We love tees, but not the cheap kind that ends up in the car wash. Invest in the design and quality of your tees so your participants will actually wear them, for years. Check out our HackToTheFuture tee (and please provide females with the right tee cut vs. the generic bulky dude tee.)
• Partners should bring their own swag too, but don’t go overboard. Swag is also wasteful and environmentally silly. Reusable water bottles are great, lithium-ion batteries are over rated, and pens are really unnecessary.

8. Project Budget

Add up what everything will cost, including swag, hardware, venue, etc. and make sure you’re comfortable with the total expenses (or perhaps even how much money the hackathon will generate). Then double it. This is how much you’ll need to run an event without *running* losing your wallet. Your top costs are Food, Venue (try to score this item for free), Prizes, Hardware.

9. Schedule

• Build a landing page with a clear hour by hour schedule. Here’s an example.
• Email attendees a few days before with all the necessary details (schedule and hardware).
• Email mentors and judges letting them know what’s expected from them (when to arrive and what to expect).
• Prepare badges/name tags.
• Create a theme? We used a HackToTheFuture theme in 2015, and we even bought a DeLorean to solidify out story.
• Launch event page on Hackster (where all the projects will be collected).

10. Post Event Report

• Lead a post mortem — go over problems, successes, etc.
• Outline what has been accomplished, recognize winners (if applicable), and/or participants that did something extraordinary.

• Post-event communication:
• Thank everyone via email.
• Send partners summary with pictures and projects.
• Recap event in a blog post (share with media, if applicable).

Done poorly, hackathons can can turn into a snooze fest or chaos — wasting your time, energy, and money and even worst…your reputation.

Bonus Resources

1. Event Flow Plan Sample
2. Event Kickoff Deck Sample
3. Hardware List Sample
4. Post Event Report Sample
5. EventBrite Registration Sample
6. Photo Album Sample
7. Projects & Teams Page Sample
8. Judging Sheet Sample
9. Other good reading on hackathon operations:

• https://hackathon.guide/
• https://socrata.com/open-data-field-guide/how-to-run-a-hackathon/
• https://guide.mlh.io/

Special thanks to those who contributed to this blog, including Alex Glow, Monica Houston, Dace Campbell, Tracey Birch, Jon Adair and the mighty Internet.