I have never been to a hackathon, but I do find the conditions of some of them a little strange. Why not provide normal work (call them fun if you want) hours f

I have never been to a hackathon, but I do find the conditions of some of them a little strange. Why not provide normal work (call them fun if you want) hours for participants, say 8 hours distributed over three to four days? If your concern is people using the spare hours to work more on their products, well then great, make that part of the rules. In this case they will get three 8 hours shifts with all the support you can provide as an organizer, and the rest of the day they are on their own (StackOverflowing, real life feedback..). I can't help but notice that one of the reasons the author is complaining can be traced back to this let's-code-all-night type of deal. If only they can make that optional.