Festiverse 2026: The World’s Biggest Festival Hackathon

Festiverse 2026 🪔✨

The World’s Biggest Festival Hackathon -> More Details to follow as we come closer to the event.

Code for culture. Build for the world. 🌍🪔

This Diwali, we are bringing you something special.

From the festival of lights and joy, Festiverse is becoming a global gathering of builders, dreamers, creators, engineers, designers, founders, artists, and storytellers who want to imagine how the world will celebrate in the future.

Festiverse is a global hackathon where culture meets technology, tradition meets imagination, and celebration becomes something we can build together.

This year’s theme is:

Festivals in the Age of AI 🪔🤖✨

How will people celebrate in the future?

How will AI, apps, agents, voice, AR, payments, creator tools, social platforms, community technology, and immersive experiences transform the way we celebrate festivals, holidays, rituals, and cultural moments?

From Diwali to Christmas, Holi, Eid, Lunar New Year, Dashain, Thanksgiving, local street festivals, family gatherings, and new digital traditions, Festiverse invites participants to build products that make celebration more meaningful, accessible, creative, connected, and joyful.

Whether you build an AI festival planner, a cultural storytelling app, a virtual celebration experience, a community coordination tool, a gifting marketplace, a creator platform, a festival commerce product, a safety tool, or something completely unexpected, Festiverse is your place to bring it to life. 🎆

A Celebration, Not Just a Hackathon 🎇

Festiverse is designed to feel fun, welcoming, colorful, and full of energy.

Expect a weekend of building, meeting amazing people, sharing culture, wearing festive outfits, enjoying food and drinks, taking photos, making memories, and celebrating what the future of festivals could look like.

This is not just a place to code. It is a place to create, connect, celebrate, and have fun. 🪔✨

Main Stage 🏙️✨

San Francisco

Festiverse will be hosted with San Francisco as the main stage, bringing together builders from one of the world’s most creative technology ecosystems.

Global hackathon hubs include:

NY • Tokyo • Seoul • London • Mumbai

More global participation details will be announced soon.

Date and Time 🗓️🪔

Starts: Saturday, November 7

Ends: Sunday, November 8

Time: 8:00 AM on November 7 to 5:00 PM on November 8

Venue 📍

Venue details will be announced soon.

The Challenge 🎆

The main problem statement is:

Festivals in the Age of AI

Participants are challenged to build something that reimagines how people celebrate, organize, share, preserve, and experience festivals in the future.

Your project can focus on culture, community, creativity, logistics, storytelling, payments, commerce, accessibility, safety, travel, food, gifting, family coordination, event discovery, virtual celebration, or anything else connected to festivals and celebration.

The best projects will not just use technology. They will make celebration feel more human. 🪔

What You Can Build 🎨💻

✨ AI festival planning assistant for families and communities

🪔 Cultural storytelling app that preserves traditions across generations

🎁 Festival gifting and shopping assistant

🍛 Food, vendor, and local business discovery platform

🎆 Virtual festival experience for remote families

🏮 Community coordination tool for temples, cultural groups, clubs, and neighborhoods

🌍 Multilingual festival guide for global communities

📸 Festival memory capsule powered by photos, voice, and AI

🎭 Creator platform for festival content, music, dance, art, and storytelling

🧓 Voice first festival assistant for elders and families

🚦 Festival safety, crowd coordination, and accessibility tools

💸 Payments, donations, ticketing, and commerce tools for celebrations

🕯️ Ritual reminder, calendar, and family tradition organizer

🎮 Game or immersive experience inspired by festivals around the world

Tracks 🏮

🪔 Culture and Community

Build tools that help people preserve traditions, connect with family, organize communities, or celebrate cultural identity.

🤖 AI and Celebration

Use AI to create new ways of planning, personalizing, storytelling, translating, recommending, or experiencing festivals.

🎨 Creator and Media

Build experiences for photos, videos, music, digital art, stories, live streams, avatars, performances, or festival content creation.

🎁 Commerce and Gifting

Build tools for festival shopping, gifting, local vendors, food ordering, creator marketplaces, ticketing, payments, or donations.

🌍 Access and Inclusion

Create products that make festivals easier to participate in for elders, immigrants, people with disabilities, remote families, multilingual communities, and first time attendees.

🎆 Open Innovation

Build anything bold, useful, beautiful, emotional, or unexpected that fits the theme of festivals and celebration.

🏆 Sponsor Tracks

Sponsor tracks will be announced soon.

Prizes 🏆✨

Prizes will be announced soon.

Winners may be recognized across multiple categories, including:

🏆 Grand Prize

🤖 Best AI Project

🪔 Best Cultural Impact

🎨 Best Design

💻 Best Technical Execution

🌍 Best Community Project

🎁 Best Commerce or Gifting Project

🎆 Most Creative Festival Experience

🤝 Sponsor Track Winners

Sponsors and Partners 🤝🏮

Sponsors and partners will be displayed soon.

Festiverse is open to partnerships with AI companies, developer platforms, cultural organizations, universities, community groups, creator platforms, food and beverage brands, fintech companies, local businesses, and global festival communities.

For partnerships and sponsorships, please contact the Festiverse organizing team.

Contact email:

Traditional Attire Encouraged 🪔👘🥻

To make Festiverse more fun, colorful, and meaningful, attendees are encouraged to wear traditional attire, cultural outfits, or festive clothing that represents a celebration, community, heritage, or tradition they care about.

This is not required, but highly encouraged.

Come ready to build, celebrate, and share culture. ✨

Food, Drinks, and Experience 🍛🥤🎉

We will provide food, drinks, snacks, and essential hackathon support throughout the event.

Expect a high energy and welcoming environment with building time, community moments, team formation, mentor support, demos, judging, celebration, and plenty of fun throughout the weekend.

Festiverse is meant to feel joyful, creative, and festive. Come ready to meet new people, build something meaningful, take photos, enjoy the atmosphere, and be part of a global celebration of culture and technology. 🎆

More attendee experience details will be shared closer to the event.

Power, WiFi, and Setup 🔌📶

Power will be available at the venue.

Multiple power strips will be available throughout the event, but participants are encouraged to bring their own chargers and any personal adapters they may need.

WiFi details will be shared at check in.

Overnight Stay 🌙

Overnight stay details are still being decided.

More information will be announced soon.

Community Link 📱

Discord, Slack, or community link coming soon.

Submission Platform 📂

The submission platform will be announced soon.

All project submission details, deadlines, demo rules, and judging instructions will be shared before the final submission window.

Eligibility 👥

Teams can have 1 to 4 people.

Solo builders are welcome.

Teams can be formed before the event or at the venue.

All participants must apply and be approved before attending.

Only approved attendees will be allowed to enter.

Participants must bring a valid government issued ID.

Only government ID will be accepted for check in.

Visa and Travel Support 🌍🛂

If you need visa support or an invitation letter to attend Festiverse, we are open to helping where possible.

Please DM one of the hosts with your request, your location, and t