Forty-eight hours of building.
Every hour of it on the wall.
You are the developer relations or university society organiser who has the venue, the sponsors, the pizza order and a run sheet that starts Friday evening and ends with demos on Sunday. The good photos of a hackathon are not the demos. They are two in the morning on Saturday, a whiteboard covered in arrows, a team asleep under a table, and the moment a build finally runs. Participants are already photographing all of it. One QR code on the sponsor wall and every table puts it into a gallery that plays on the main screen all weekend.
The moments guests actually photograph at hackathons
Why hackathons work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
Friday, Saturday and demo day under one code
Add a sub-event per day and participants pick which one they are uploading to. The kickoff photos stay with Friday, the all-nighter with Saturday, and the demos and winners are their own set, which is what sponsors and the recap post want. One code on the wall for the whole weekend.
A photo wall that runs all weekend
Put the slideshow on the main screen and new uploads appear as they land. At three in the morning it is the only thing moving in the room, and a team seeing their own whiteboard on the big screen uploads the next one. Control it from a phone from anywhere in the venue.
A directory recruiters and sponsors can actually use
Sponsors come to hackathons to hire. Participants opt in to the networking directory with what they built and what they are looking for, and sponsor engineers book time with them from the event page. It works after the weekend too, when the offers actually get made.
No app. No account. One scan.
Guests point their camera at a QR code and are uploading in seconds. Nobody installs anything, nobody creates a login, and the grandparents can do it as easily as the teenagers.
Several days, one gallery
Multi-day celebrations get sub-events under one code, so the rehearsal, the ceremony and the brunch stay organised but reachable from a single link.
Attendee networking
Attendees opt in to a directory, exchange contact details and book meetings from the event page — useful long after the photos stop.
Live photo wall on any screen
Open the slideshow on a TV, projector or laptop and new uploads appear as they arrive. Grid and collage layouts, transition presets, and a phone remote to control it from across the room.
You approve before anyone sees
Turn on host review and every upload waits in your queue until you approve it. AI screening flags anything questionable so you are not scrolling through hundreds of photos at midnight.
Full-resolution downloads
Download any photo, or the whole event as one archive, at original quality. What guests uploaded is what you keep — no compression, no watermark on paid events.
How it works
Set up in a minute. Collect for the whole event.
Create the hackathon with a sub-event for each day, and turn on host review so nothing reaches the screen without a look.
Put the QR code on the sponsor wall, the check-in desk, each team table and the slide before the opening brief.
Participants upload the build in progress, the whiteboards and the demos. The wall on the main screen shows approved uploads as they arrive.
Download the archive for the sponsor report and the winners' announcement, and share the gallery link with every participant afterwards.
Try uploading as a guest.
Scan this with your phone the way a guest at your event would. Choose a sample photo and upload it from your browser, then open the demo gallery to see it land.
- Scan the code with your phone camera — it opens straight in the browser.
- Upload a sample photo. Look for the upload confirmation so you know it reached the host.
Use a sample you are comfortable sharing with Picsui. Please keep personal or sensitive photos out of the demo.
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This is the same kind of code your guests scan at your event.
Getting the most from hackathons
Announce the code in the opening brief and say what you want: photos of the build, not just the demos. Hackers are a self-aware crowd and will upload the two-in-the-morning shots and the failed builds if you tell them that is the point. Put the slideshow on the main screen from the first hour and leave it running; a room that sees its own photos on the wall keeps feeding it, and it gives the sponsors something to look at during the long quiet middle of Saturday. Keep host review on so a screenshot of someone's API key does not land on the big screen.
Treat demo day as its own upload moment and brief the judges' table. Every team photographs their own demo from the front row, and the winners get photographed by everyone. Ask the MC to remind the room of the code right before the first demo and again before the winners are announced. Have one organiser approving the queue during demos so the winning team's photos reach the wall while the applause is still going. Then download the originals as one archive for the sponsor report, because sponsors ask for their booth photos within a week and it is easier to send them all at once.
Open the networking directory in the brief and explain who is in it. Participants opt in with what they built and whether they are looking for internships or jobs; sponsor engineers and recruiters opt in from their side and book time with teams from the event page. It is opt-in, so nobody who does not want to be approached is listed. The directory keeps working after the weekend, which is when the recruiting conversations actually happen, and it gives sponsors a concrete reason to come back next year beyond a logo on a wall.
Common questions about hackathons
How do we keep photos from each day of a hackathon separate?
Create the hackathon as one event and add a sub-event for each day, or for kickoff, build and demos if that fits your run sheet better. Participants scan the same code all weekend and pick the day when they upload, so the gallery groups Friday's opening, Saturday's all-nighter and Sunday's demos without anyone sorting afterwards. The recap post pulls the winners without wading through pizza photos, and the whole weekend is still one link to share with every participant and sponsor.
Can we show the photos on the big screen during the event?
Yes. Open the slideshow on the main screen, a projector or any laptop connected to a display, and approved uploads appear as they arrive, in grid or collage layouts with transition presets. An organiser controls it from a phone remote, so it can be paused for the sponsor talks and resumed for the build hours. With host review on, nothing reaches the screen until someone approves it, which matters when a photo of a laptop can include a credential or a private repo.
How do sponsors and recruiters connect with participants?
Through the attendee networking directory on the event page. Participants opt in with their name, what they built and what they are looking for; sponsor staff opt in from their side, exchange contact details and book meetings with teams directly. Nothing is shared by anyone who did not opt in. The directory stays usable after the hackathon ends, which is when most recruiting follow-ups actually happen, and it gives sponsors something measurable to point to when they decide whether to fund next year.
Some teams are building on unreleased APIs. Is the hackathon gallery public?
The gallery is private by default. It is only reachable by the link or code you share, it is never listed, and guest pages are blocked from search engines and AI crawlers. Turn on host review and every upload waits for an organiser's approval before it appears on the wall or in the gallery, so a photo of a screen showing a sponsor's unreleased API or a key never gets past the queue. Participants and sponsors download approved photos at full resolution from the link, and the gallery stays online for 365 days on an Event Pass.
What does it cost for a whole weekend?
One Event Pass at $29 covers the entire hackathon, because the days are sub-events under the same code. It includes unlimited uploads with a 25 GB fair-use bound, the live slideshow, host review, the networking directory, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting. There is no per-participant fee and no subscription, so a two-hundred-person hackathon costs the same as a twenty-person internal one, and a sponsor will often cover it in exchange for the photos of their booth. The archive is yours to keep once downloaded.
Every photo from hackathons, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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