The most important thing is to bring your GovHack Spirit of fun, friendship and helping others! GovHack is a friendly creative environment.
Tech and equipment
Most participants form teams and work together and allocate different tasks to different team members. For instance you may be great at ideating and creating a marketing pitch through a storyboard. Another team member may mine data for the concepts so needs a computer and someone else could focus their energy on elements of a winning video. So not everyone needs a laptop 🙂 Here are some of the things we’ve seen people using at GovHack.
- Laptop
- Mouse and mousepad
- Adaptors and power cables (some may be supplied)
- Headphones
- USB thumb drives, external hard drives
- Phone and charger
- Drawing tablet and stylus
- Bluetooth adapter
- USB hub
- Camera or video equipment – although not required
- Wi-fi dongle – not required as venue have wifi, however please remember there may be a high volume of uses at critical times.
- Identification or Proof of Age card
Please label your belongings so we can return them to you if you leave them behind.
Can I leave equipment at the venue overnight? We discourage this, however recognise some people like to have their monitor at the events. Please be aware that you do this at your own risk and GovHack accepts no responsibility for any possessions left unattended at the venue.
The other stuff
GovHack is great fun, but it can also be an intense and stressful weekend at times. Bring what you need to stay productive and comfortable.
- Comfortable clothing
- Ugg boots, fuzzy socks
- A jumper
- Music or podcasts
- Any data you’ve downloaded for the event, or notes you’ve made
- Your favourite snacks and drinks (we’ll provide main meals and healthy snacks!)
- A water bottle
- Glasses, if you need them for reading screens
- Pen, paper, post-its, notebook, coloured markers, your stationery drawer
- Business cards
- Any medications you may need
- Your wallet and keys
Sleeping at the venue
Sleeping at venues is not permitted. Please go home and sleep.
Internet access
Your local venue will provide WiFi. Details for how you can connect to the WiFi will be provided at your event launch. Your WiFi usage, including content downloads, may be monitored as part of general venue security, so please use the access provided with respect and avoid any illegal behaviour. Please make sure the laptops or computers you bring can connect via WiFi, or that you bring a WiFi dongle. Hardwired connections are not available at venues. Please be aware that during peak periods (4 to 5pm Sunday) internet connectivity may be slow. Please plan accordingly.
Food
At Official Events we’ll be taking care of your food while you’re at GovHack, so all you need to bring along are any snacks you want.
- Friday: Supper
- Saturday: Morning tea, lunch, dinner
- Sunday: Morning tea, lunch
If you’re attending a Node Event you may need to bring your own food. Most Node events have secured a small amount of sponsorship to contribute to catering or may help to organise a pizza order for everyone to chimp into.
Check out what type of event you are attending on the website. View more information about your venue catering on your locations event page.
Special Dietary needs
If you have any special dietary needs, let us know in your Hackerspace Account settings. We’ll do our best to take care of you. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options will be available for participants that have advised us, but we do need to know numbers so we can make sure there is enough for everyone.
The organisers will have endeavoured to accommodate a wide range of dietary requirements. If you have severe allergies or important dietary requirements make sure that you have provided that information on your ticket registration.
Catering is often donated by wonderful sponsors, accordingly at this time we are unable to offer or guarantee products are organic. Thank you for understanding
Need coffee… yes please!
Some locations have generous sponsors that have helped out with access to real coffee and hot beverages from a local cafe or coffee cart. Your host will let you know details at your launch event if this is available. Please drink responsibly 🙂 Venues will generally have some basic kitchen facilities including tea, instant coffee and milk.