Hosting an event sounds intimidating until you do it once. Then it sounds like setting up a meetup — with prizes. Here's a no-bullshit checklist from running 21 events on this platform.

Pick your audience first. "A hackathon for everyone" gets nobody to register. "A 48-hour Rust gamedev jam for indie teams" sells out. The narrower the audience, the easier the marketing.

Budget the minimum: prize + jury + ops. Plan €500–2 000 for prizes (free events also work — many of our biggest are free), €0–500 if jurors are volunteers, and ~10 hours of your own time per event week. Sponsor logos, certificate templates, leaderboards, and notifications are all built-in on this platform — you don't pay extra for them.

Pick the right phase model. "Onboarding → Started → Finished" is the default for hackathons. Conferences want "Registration → Live → Recordings". Quizzes / fast tournaments want "Open → Closed → Results". You set this in the event settings; the cabinet adapts automatically.

Promote two weeks before, not the week of. Most signups happen 10–14 days before the event, with a smaller spike 24 hours before. Use the realm-branded landing pages we generate per event — they get indexed and bring organic traffic.

Once you've hosted one, the second is half the work. The platform remembers your settings, your templates, your jury, and your sponsor relationships.