Demo night is the best part of a hackathon. Twelve teams, three minutes each, pizza going cold, and a room full of people who actually built things. Then the judges disappear to deliberate, and for twenty minutes the energy just drains out of the room.
A people's choice vote fixes that. The audience picks a winner live, the bars move on the projector while the judges are out, and the team that won the room gets something to brag about even if the judges went another way.
Here's how we'd run one, from the first demo to the final reveal, with one QR code that stays on the screen all night.
What you need
- A laptop connected to the projector.
- Your phone, to run the vote from the side of the room.
- LivePoll, which is free, needs no app for voters, and has unlimited voters with a free account.
Voters don't sign up. They scan the QR code, tap a team, and they're done. Here's the whole loop in under a minute:
The projector view. The QR code and the six-digit code stay up the whole time.
Before the event: set up the first round
Put the first batch of teams into a poll. If you have more than six or seven teams, split them into rounds of four to six. It's easier to read on the projector, and every team gets a moment where the bars are about them.
Name the answers the way the room knows the teams: "Team Rubber Duck" works better than "Project 7". You can start from the talent show or crown vote template and replace the names.
Publish it, open the big-screen view on the projector laptop, and open the remote on your phone. Sign in with a free account, because that's what lets you run more than one round on the same code.
During the demos: let the room vote
After each batch of demos, open voting. People scan the QR code from their seats and vote on their phones.
Each phone gets one vote and can change it until voting closes.
Two things make this better than a show of hands:
- People can change their vote. If the last demo of the round blows everyone away, the bars move.
- Fans bring fans. After voting, a phone can share its pick in one tap: "I voted for Team Rubber Duck, vote here." That's how a team's friends on the stream, or in the hallway, end up in the vote.
Between batches: next round, same QR code
This is the part that usually breaks at events. A new poll means a new QR code, and you lose half the room while people scan again.
With the remote on your phone, press Next round and type the next teams' names. The new round goes up on the same poll. Phones that are already on the vote page move to the new round on their own, so nobody scans twice, and every round's results are kept.
Next round on the remote: new names, same code.
The final: winners face off
Once every batch has voted, run a final round with the winner of each batch. It's the most fun three minutes of the night: the whole room on one vote, with the bars swinging on the projector.
If there's a real prize, two settings are worth turning on:
- Hide results until voting closes, so the reveal is a reveal and nobody votes for whoever's already ahead.
- Strict voting, so the same phone can't vote again from a private tab.
Both come with Pro or the $9 Event Pass, along with your hackathon's colors and logo on the big screen. For a free community event, the default (one vote per phone, changeable until close) is enough.
Questions that work besides "who won"
The same QR code works for the rest of the night too:
- "Which demo would you actually use tomorrow?"
- "Best team name?"
- "Which API did you fight with the most this weekend?"
- "Pizza or tacos next time?"
Lighter questions between rounds keep people on the vote page, which means they're already there when the final opens.
The short version
- Put each batch of teams in a round, four to six names each.
- Big screen on the projector, remote on your phone, free account signed in.
- Open voting after each batch, and fans share their pick in one tap.
- Next round keeps the same QR code, and phones move on by themselves.
- Finish with a final round of batch winners, and hide results until it closes if there's a prize.
Start one free at freelivepoll.com/contest-voting. How does your meetup or hackathon pick its people's choice winner right now?
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