What Does it Take to Run a Hackathon?
The surprises behind organizing one of today’s most popular tech events
By Sean Safari
This past year, I was president of my local ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) chapter. In the previous year, The College of New Jersey held its first ever hackathon, largely organized by one of our professors. This year, the goal was to pass the planning and execution on to a student organization. Our target was a simple premise: foster an environment for 24 hours that promotes creativity, programming, and fun.
So what does it take to run a hackathon? Well, the first question that comes to mind is where to begin. The answer can be found by attending other hackathons currently running around your area. Sites like Major League Hacking and Hacker League tell you all about where to find, attend, and participate in hackathons surrounding you. While you are there, you have a chance to dive into the real spirit of the hackathon: the raw creativity surrounding making something fresh in 24 hours. It is unlike any other “competition” that I have been to, where the atmosphere is not a tense competitive environment, but instead filled with comradery and a determination to get that piece of code working. While I was visiting other hackathons, I had a chance to network with some of the people in charge of running these events. More specifically, during HackRU, I was able to talk to some of the organizers and figure out what it took to get the ball rolling. One response stood out the most: start planning early.
Like any other event, logistics is the key to success, and there is no better way to hammer down the logistics than to start early. You begin with the objective: host an event for 24 hours where people can program and create things. But then the long list of questions begins: How many participants? Where are they going to hack? What are the prizes going to be? How do we get those prizes? If you have been to a hackathon before, you know that the big staples are free admission, t-shirts and food during the event. So, eventually you make the determination that scale is dependent on budget. At least it’s a start.
Obviously, there is a lot of planning that needs to get done before a successful event happens. But from a first glance, I am sure you can surmise that it is a lot, too much in fact, for one person to handle by themselves. That is why if you take a look at the huge and most successful hackathons, like PennApps, HackRU, and MHacks, there are teams of people helping plan and execute these events. What is truly amazing is that none of the people in these teams are doing what they do for monetary gain or charity, but a belief in the atmosphere, community, and developers that a hackathon fosters. These are people that go to hackathons at other schools, and want to see the same thing happening at their school. So, they get to work.
Let’s say you have a team of likeminded people together, and some idea of the scale of the hackathon itself. Now it’s time to dive deep into the logistics. The first thing to focus on is a location; you cannot have a hackathon without a place to hack! For this, you will probably need to speak to your school/company. Often, there will already be a designated area where these events can take place. Depending on your school and situation, you may need to pay the school for use of the location and other factors beyond your control. Some of these include security, cleanup, and setup of the location for your hackathon. These are things you want to factor into your overall budget early, so you know what you are in for.
The second thing to focus on is sponsorship. Free food and prizes don’t appear from thin air. Your first year will be your hardest for obtaining sponsors. As a result, you should try and make your sponsorship packages reasonable and attractive for sponsors. The typical approach is to offer tiered packages, so that a company can choose a level of sponsorship that they are comfortable with. Depending on your scale, it’s up to you to decide to monetary amounts associated with each tier, but I recommend starting small. Make sure you offer advantages that make you unique. Every hackathon has a resume drop, but how many have one on one conversations with the winners? Attractive options include extended demo time outside the introduction of the event itself, increased interaction ability with attendees (like twitter, email messages during the event) and unique ways for companies to market their brand. When speaking to sponsors, it’s important to understand why they are there in the first place. Companies sponsor hackathons because they believe in the vision that the developers and students attending events like these are motivated by, as well as scouting for potential assets that could be utilized in their company. Prove them right.
So you’ve developed sponsorship packages, but you want to know what the best way is to reach out to potential sponsors. I’d like to tell you cold calls and random emails are effective, but nothing beats familiarity. Attending hackathons not only offers you networking opportunities with those who are organizing the event, but often you can make connections with the sponsors themselves. Find a right time to pitch them your vision. If you can get them as a contact, then you are much more likely to receive a response. In addition, this is a great time to talk to your school’s career center about reaching out to alumni. Some former students may have ended up at companies you want to reach out to, or companies you never thought of reaching out to. It’s a win-win for the school and for your event, because relationships are fostered between the school and the alumni, and you get more avenues for sponsorship. It should be noted that receiving sponsorship takes time, so be sure to plan ahead. Otherwise, you may not be able to scale the event to the size you want.
Fast forward a bit. Location has been reserved, some sponsorship has been received. You can now start implementing some plans for what you would want the prizes to be at the hackathon and what kind of food should be served. Please don’t make your attendees eat pizza 3 times in a row. Hackathons normally have a fairly diverse food base, so it’s important to remember that no one wants to be eating the same thing the whole time. Remember that people need drinks, snacks, and amenities to hold them over in-between meals. Don’t forget the vegetarian option. Prizes are a bit of a different story. Usually, some of the prizes have already been handled through your sponsors. Still, you should provide a first, second, and third prize. If possible, unique prizes for unique creations are always welcomed. Even when that is decided, you cannot forget about logistics. How will the prizes be distributed? Do we need something set-up beforehand? Do we want certificates? Think about these things ahead of time. Something that I noticed is that if you are going to get gift cards, realize people tend to participate in hackathons in teams. It is difficult/awkward to split up funds on a gift card, so try and avoid that by giving teams their winnings individually or through an alternative method. But if that is your approach, you need to take their information before they leave the event. Remember, logistics.
Fast forward a little bit more. Food is planned out, prizes are ready to be distributed. Now, before we delve deeper into the logistical side, ask yourself one question: Do people know my event is even happening? If the answer is no, then you have been neglecting a critical aspect of any successful event: presence. Make sure your site is up to date whenever you receive a sponsor. Make sure the people in your classes, your department, and your school that this event is happening and it’s going to be big. Make sure people in your surrounding area know about this event. The earlier you list your hackathon on a site like MLH and HL, the better your attendance will be. If no one knows about an event, was there ever really an event at all? Deeper into the logistics we go. You’ve decided what food you want. Call the vendors about the order. Make sure they are comfortable fulfilling it. Also, be aware of transportation. How is the food going to reach point A to point B? If Dominoes has taught you anything, it’s that delivery is expensive. Typically, a bunch of student volunteers will head out before a planned serving time to grab the food and stuff it in their car to bring to the event. If the words going through your head are “Hey, that’s a great idea!”, then you’d better have reliable people tasked to pick up the food. Have backups just in case.
By now, you might have noticed that a lot of these jobs require more people than just the core group you created to help plan the event. Simple tasks, like going to get food, or helping move drinks and utensils from one area to another can be farmed out to a small group of student volunteers. Often, you will find people want to help with the event but do not have the ability to invest as much as you are, so to these people you can delegate smaller tasks. Fast forward to the day before the event. You know how food is working, how things are being paid for, what kind of magic is required to transport items from one area to another, where sponsorship areas are located to speak to attendees, how event registration is going to work, who to call to unlock what door…the list goes on and on. You have all of this knowledge. When you look back, you realize the incredible amount of planning that goes into making events like this happen. You remember the stressful nights of trying to piece together this puzzle, the hurdles that you had to jump through. At the end of the day, your question is going to be was it worth it? The answer is yes. Seeing an event that you planned to foster an atmosphere that you love is an incredibly fulfilling experience. When it’s all over, and you’ve witnessed incredible applications, shook a thousand hands, and are tired from a night without sleep, there’s one thing running through your mind.
Next year is going to be bigger.
