Mostly by not doing things like hiring a bunch of women to serve beer and listing it as a perk. It's then appealing to anyone interested in the topic, regardles

Mostly by not doing things like hiring a bunch of women to serve beer and listing it as a perk. It's then appealing to anyone interested in the topic, regardless of anything. Just don't do things that explicitly cater to "FOO" if your intentions are not to explicitly cater to group "FOO", particularly if those things include offering up people of group "BAR" as an incentive to come. Should you do things to make your hackathon appealing to programmers? Yes. These things are food, drinks, subject matter/activities and socialization with other programmers. Food and drinks appeal to humans, and you don't want a bunch of people having heatstrokes or diabetic comas. Subject matter/activities and other programmers being there to socialize with appeal to programmers. Pretty much all programmers who would want to attend a hackathon.