A recent highly advertised hackathon rejected my application.

I DM'd an organizer and got told there was no space at the venue.

I showed up anyways and security was checking names before allowing entrants in.

Walk in with a box of "stuff" and shuffle over with a look of friendly inconvenience, and as they're scouring the list for my name: "Oh uh sorry I was a really late application so I might be towards the end or something".

"Ah thanks for letting me know!", and after some half hearted searching security pens in my name, and off I go. My team ended up being finalists.

The room was probably half empty btw. I get fire codes are a thing but as someone who's helped organize hackathons, organizers are notorious for overestimating the conversion rate from "accepted" to "actually shows up"