Why Student Hackathons Shouldn’t Charge Attendees

One of the MLH Community Values is that events shouldn’t charge attendees. We believe so strongly that charging attendees is harmful to the community that we simply will not work with events that charge.

Every season I speak to a few organizers who ask the question: Why not? Hackathons provide a huge value to attendees. Hackathons not only provide a great educational and networking experience, but also food and shelter for an entire weekend. Why shouldn’t attendees chip in?

TL;DR: If you charge attendees you are actively making it harder for beginners and minorities in tech to take part.

Free tickets vastly improve the inclusivity of your hackathon. Hackathons can be very intimidating for first-timers. Although hackathons are often a supportive learning environment, it can look like a competition that only elite programmers should attend.

Charging for tickets can increase the feeling that the event is for elite programmers — for the pros. So it raises the barrier to entry for hackathons. Even if you promise to reimburse the tickets, the act of taking out your credit card is enough of a barrier that many people simply won’t sign up. Not necessarily because they don’t plan on coming, but maybe because they honestly don’t have the money, they are nervous about sharing payment information online, or they feel they aren’t good enough.

Imposter syndrome is the feeling that you aren’t good enough, even if you’re actually experienced and talented. It affects a wide range of students. So you should make signing up for your event as easy as possible. A low barrier to entry means a wide range of people who are interested in coming will sign up — even if they’re unsure if they’re good enough. Then you can communicate with them the values of coming to your hackathon and get them to confirm their attendance to get a better view of who will actually come.

In our yearly survey of over 2000 hackers, we found that female hackers are twice as likely as men to list imposter syndrome as a reason they chose not to attend a hackathon. So raising the barrier to entry can disproportionately affect women who want to sign up for your event.

On top of that, there are a lot of students who really have to watch their pockets. They have to work part time jobs to fund going to school and they have to watch every dollar they spend. I often hear the phrase “students won’t mind paying $10 — it’s nothing!”* — this simply isn’t true for all students. Just because it’s not a lot of money for you, does not mean it’s not a lot for everybody. It is an immensely privileged attitude to assume that $10 is an amount of money not worth thinking about. If you charge attendees — even if you charge and then reimburse — that is going to dissuade some students from going to your event on economic grounds. Studying at university is already prohibitively expensive for people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. It would be disappointing to see hackathons contribute to that state of affairs.

If a student does have the money, even the act of having to pay can put them off from registering for a ticket. At every hackathon I go to I help hackers get set up free AWS accounts. I have met dozens of students who are so nervous of entering credit card details online that they simply won’t do it. Even for something like AWS which is one of the most respected vendors in the world. These people don’t even have PayPal accounts and don’t want them. Also international students or high schoolers might not have credit cards or payment methods that they can easily use.

So charging for attendees raises the barrier of entry, can disproportionately affect marginalised groups in tech, is unfair on those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and is unfair on hackers who are nervous of paying for things online.

How to solve attrition

Firstly, charging doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of attrition. Even if you charge attendees, some of them won’t turn up. Even airlines overbook planes because they have to account for attrition from tickets that cost hundreds of dollars. So you’ll still have to deal with some attrition. From our experience with hundreds of events around the world, the attrition rate is 30–50%. You should expect closer to the 50% rate for events in saturated areas such as East Coast USA. We expect rates closer to 30% for less saturated areas such as Europe.

Unfortunately, once in a while an event will get a horrific drop out rate. But on average, over hundreds of events, the actual number of attendees is just 10% less than what organizers aim for. Definitely not perfect, but hardly as desperate a state of affairs as some badly attended events might make it seem.

If you want to improve attendance rates there are several things you can do:

• Communicate with sign ups on a regular basis. Keep them excited about the event and remind them why going to the event will be exciting.
• Check where your attendees are coming from. If you see attendees coming from very far away, double check with them that they’re coming.
• Reach out to local communities — so many events are worried about getting people from around the world without reaching out to local universities.
• Communicate that people should cancel their tickets if they decide they can’t make it. Make it clear that not cancelling a ticket is potentially taking away a ticket from somebody else.
• Communicate that the event is open to beginners. Have mentors and workshops at the event and tell people they will be there.
• Have workshops before the event so people will feel more ready.

Good communication with ticket holders and a focus on your local community can vastly improve your attrition rates. And that is less prohibitive and doesn’t raise the barrier to entry for beginners and marginalised groups.**

*(This argument is self-defeating anyway. On the one hand people say they need attendees to pay money so they care about attending and not wasting money. On the other hand they say students don’t care about such a small amount of money.)

**(Remember, making your event inclusive isn’t just achieved by having free tickets. It’s something you should be thinking about every step of organizing, from selecting your team, through the language you use, your marketing, your prizes, and more.)