PULTEVENT
Hackathon audience voting: 7 ways to run the people's choice at demo time
Hackathon audience voting usually happens at the worst possible moment: 11 pm on day two, twenty teams have just demoed in four minutes each, half the room is on energy drinks and the other half is asleep on beanbags. Somebody holds up a paper ballot box. This page is about doing that part properly, from the attendees' own phones, with a result nobody can argue with.
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A people's choice award is only worth something if the room believes the count. Show of hands favours the team with the most friends near the front. Clapping meters favour the loudest table. A web form in a group chat gets forwarded to people who never saw the demos. What organizers need is simple: each person in the hall votes once, from their own phone, and the result is visible live on the projector.
PULTEVENT does this in the browser. Attendees scan a QR code on screen and land on a voting page, no app and no account. The organizer runs everything from a laptop, and the main screen shows the totals as they come in. The phones and the laptop need internet, so check the venue Wi-Fi or mobile coverage in the demo hall before the final evening. Below are seven formats that work at hackathons, from quick demo reactions to a proper funding round.
7 hackathon voting formats, from the first demo to the award
1 People's choice with hackcoins
Every attendee receives a starting balance, say 100 coins, and a card for each team with its name, a one-line pitch and a screenshot. They put coins into the projects they would actually back, with plus and minus buttons or quick jumps of 10, 25 or 50. The team with the biggest total wins.
How to run it. Tell people before the demos start that voting will be by budget, so they take notes on who impressed them instead of deciding at the end.
A single-choice vote rewards popularity. A budget rewards conviction, and it lets people back two or three strong teams without feeling they betrayed anyone.
2 Reactions during each demo
While a team presents, the audience taps reactions on their phones: learned something, great use case, want this, confused. Bubbles on the side screen grow in real time, with no numbers, just proportions.
How to run it. Start a new reaction session for each team so every demo gets its own chart. You can compare them after the event.
It keeps the room awake through demo number fourteen, and teams get honest feedback on which part of their pitch landed.
3 Questions to the teams from the floor
Four minutes of demo leaves no time for a mic to travel. Attendees pick the team from a list, type a question and send it. Others upvote the questions they want answered too.
How to run it. Switch on pre-moderation. At a hackathon someone will always try a joke question at 1 am, and you want to catch it before it reaches the projector.
Judges often ask the same three technical questions. The room asks about pricing, data and users, which is what a real market asks.
4 Head-to-head final between two teams
If two teams are neck and neck, put them on screen side by side: photo, team name and a one-sentence claim each. The hall picks one, and a big percentage bar moves live.
How to run it. Set a round timer of sixty to ninety seconds and forbid changing votes, so the result is final when the clock stops.
It turns a tie into the most watched two minutes of the weekend, and the dynamics chart shows how the room swung during each team's last pitch.
5 Separate rounds per track
Large hackathons split into tracks: fintech, health, climate, open category. Run a fresh investor round for each track with only that track's teams on the cards, then crown one people's favourite per track.
How to run it. Close each round before opening the next. Once a round is closed, the votes are locked and can't change.
Twenty cards on one phone screen is too many to judge fairly. Six per track is readable, and more teams get something to take home.
6 Jury result against audience result
The judges score on their criteria, the audience votes with coins. Announce both, jury first, then switch the screen to the live audience board. When they disagree, the room loves it.
How to run it. Keep the audience board off the main screen until the jury has spoken. Show a title slide or the stage camera meanwhile.
Teams that miss the jury prize still leave with public recognition, which matters for recruiting and for their next funding conversation.
7 Closing mood check
Before everyone leaves, open a short reaction session with your own set: would come back, learned a lot, too little sleep, want more mentors. The screen shows the mix as bubbles.
How to run it. Change the reaction labels in the control panel beforehand so they match what you actually want to learn for next year.
Survey links sent the next day get a fraction of the replies. People in the hall answer in two taps while they still care.
Virtual capital, not a single tick
Each attendee spreads a budget of coins across the teams they rate, so a strong second choice still counts.
One phone, one budget
The server blocks a second vote from the same phone, and a dropped connection returns the voter to their own session.
Live leaderboard on the projector
Team bars grow on screen as coins arrive and the ranking reshuffles in front of everyone.
Your event, your coin
Rename the currency, add your logo and colors, and set the starting balance yourself in the control panel.
Why coins beat a single vote at a hackathon
At most hackathons the audience is made up of participants, mentors, sponsors and a few friends. Participants rarely vote for their own team if they have a meaningful budget to hand out, because giving 100 coins to yourself looks bad on a live board and feels pointless. They spread coins across teams they respect. That is the behavior you want.
The organizer decides the rules. You can require the full budget to be spent or allow people to keep some in reserve. The phone shows a running summary of capital, allocated and remaining, and blocks anything beyond the budget with a clear message such as "Not enough coins. Available: 25". Before sending, each voter sees their full list of investments and confirms. They can change their mind until you close the round.
Keeping the count clean
Hackathon crowds are technical, and some of them will test your voting. One phone gets one budget; a second attempt from the same device is refused on the server side. If someone's browser crashes or the Wi-Fi drops, they come back to their own session with their choices intact rather than a fresh balance.
No system can stop a team from inviting twenty friends to the final evening, so write that into your rules instead. A common approach is to open the people's choice only to registered participants and mentors in the hall, and to project the QR code only once the final demo has finished.
Running it from the tech desk
You need a laptop with a browser, connected to the projector or LED wall, and a second window for the control panel. Put the team cards in during the afternoon while the teams are still coding, then check each team's name spelling with their lead. Upload screenshots at a decent size, because they show up both on phones and on the big screen.
During the demo block, the person at the desk only has to do three things: start a new reaction session per team, watch incoming questions if Q&A is open, and open the investor round when the MC says so. One person can manage it. For hackathons with more than one stage, give each stage its own operator.
What the MC says
Short and specific works best. "Phones out. Scan the code on screen. You each have 100 hackcoins. Put them into the teams you would actually fund. You can split them however you like. You have three minutes, and you can change your mind until I close the round."
Then keep quiet and let the board move. The live reshuffling of the ranking is the show. Call the result only after you have closed the round in the control panel, not while the numbers are still moving.
Mistakes we see at demo nights
Forgetting to close the round before announcing, so a late coin changes the winner after the name has been read out. Projecting the QR code while a team is still presenting, which pulls every eye onto phones. Testing the screen at lunch and not again at 10 pm, when someone has unplugged the HDMI cable to charge a laptop. Leaving pre-moderation off on the Q&A. All of these are fixed with a two-minute checklist before the final block.
After the hackathon
Results can be exported, which is useful for sponsor reports and for the blog post announcing winners. When you're done, clear the data. The platform runs on a one-time payment with lifetime access or a monthly plan, and there is a 72-hour demo with no card needed, which is enough to set up a mock final with your team and try it on the real screen.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who hosts business forums, corporate conferences and demo days as well as private events. He has run over 500 events since 2014 and was named best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He built it for his own stages first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run hackathon audience voting
- 1
Decide the rules: who may vote, the coin budget, whether all coins must be spent.
- 2
Create a card for each team with its name, a one-line pitch and a screenshot.
- 3
Brand the voting page with your logo, colors and the name of your coin.
- 4
Test on the real projector and on two phones, one iOS and one Android.
- 5
After the last demo, show the QR code and open the investor round.
- 6
Close the round, show the final board and announce the people's choice.
FAQ
Do attendees need to download an app?
How is the people's choice winner decided?
Can someone vote twice?
Can voters change their allocation?
How many teams fit in one round?
Can we call the coins something else?
How much does it cost?
See also
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