I've been to many hackathons both in the SF Bay area and in the Sydney area, and I find the Sydney ones to involve much more hacking.
I think many people in the tech scene in the SF bay area are there because they want to get in on that scene, because it's the hot/$$ thing todo, but they don't actually have tech skills - so when they come to tech events, they either find a way to not hack, or they find someone to hold their hand through hacking.
We don't have that problem in Sydney. Basically everyone who is in the tech scene is in it because they truly like tech and have the skills. (Or they will try damn hard to develop the skills themself.)
Generally, I find we have a higher quality of developers at free tech events in Sydney than in San Francisco for that reason. I was pretty happy when I moved from SF to Sydney and realized that I no longer needed to figure out how to filter the pseudo-techs from the Google tech events that I organized.
I was at the Sydney government data hackfest in the Powerhouse Museum yesterday. Everyone seemed pretty focused on the hacking and nobody as far as I could tell brought completed code.
I think you're right that the downside of having a high-profile hacking scene in the bay is that you get scenesters. I'm not convinced that's the source of the problem in this case, though.
You have to ask "what's the point of this event?" If, as Jorge said, it's a gathering of developers rather than a sprint to make an app, then that isn't what I would call a hackathon. The ones that I've been to had prizes, a strict time limit, and rules (well, guidelines) about prior code. Their point was to make applications under constraint, and when you have less than eight hours to make an app, there's no time for networking. That comes after. :)
That's not to say the Foursquare guys are doing anything wrong, just that the word hackathon can mean a lot of things. If they're thinking "cool developer melting pot" and you're thinking "fuck talking, I came here to code like crazy" then obviously you'll come away frustrated.
The answer in this case is that Foursquare could be more explicit with their expectations for the day, or the OP could be more mercenary with the hackfests they attend (eg, only ones with prizes, or where prior code is discouraged).
Maybe moving to Sydney is something I should look into, theres the occasional meetup (ruby, node communities (in a library :P)) but that's all there seems to be. Brisbane is rather dull in many ways.
Funny you should ask this today, I just sent out a notification for YBITS, the Young Brisbane IT Social.
The idea is to get a group of like-minded young (of mind) IT professionals together in a 'networking' format that doesn't feel douchy.
It's part of my cunning master-plan to give Brisbane a bit more of a startup scene, but most of the attendees are still un-aware:P
I think it'd be a great venue to kick something like that off, do you want to work together on something? YBITS is here: https://groups.google.com/group/YBITS/browse_thread/thread/4... (That's the link to our march meeting) and you can contact me via my details here.
I think many people in the tech scene in the SF bay area are there because they want to get in on that scene, because it's the hot/$$ thing todo, but they don't actually have tech skills - so when they come to tech events, they either find a way to not hack, or they find someone to hold their hand through hacking.
We don't have that problem in Sydney. Basically everyone who is in the tech scene is in it because they truly like tech and have the skills. (Or they will try damn hard to develop the skills themself.)
Generally, I find we have a higher quality of developers at free tech events in Sydney than in San Francisco for that reason. I was pretty happy when I moved from SF to Sydney and realized that I no longer needed to figure out how to filter the pseudo-techs from the Google tech events that I organized.