How I'd approach Startup Weekend if I did it again

I've participated in a few startup events: Sydney Startup Weekend, Social Startup 48, and Melbourne Startup Weekend.  Each time, I've changed how I've approached it to try to improve my experience.  At the moment, this is how I'd approach it if I were to do it again:

Pitch: If you're going to attend a startup event, you might as well be a founder.  The events are way more interesting if you're working on your own ideas and own initiative.  Having said this, you may decide to join someone else's more interesting idea, especially if you find yourself on your own

Go to where the customers are: Get out of the building and talk to potential customers.  Everyone on the team should do this and at a minimum the founders should.

Model the customer more explicitly: Use empathy maps, user personae, customer journey maps, etc. to guide your understanding of your customers.

Build prototypes earlier: I've tended to have a reluctance to build much until we've validated with interviews and things like magic tests but now I'm thinking using multiple prototypes of many forms to learn both what customers want as well as just to allow more technical engagement.

Collective learning over throughput: Involve everyone in the learning process so we all learn about what we should build together.  This might end up being slower but it rubs me the wrong way otherwise.

Focus on insight and creativity, not on how to impress potential investors: Learning and experiencing how to identify and solve a valuable problem in a very short period of time is the point of the exercise.  The fact that there is a structure around competition and judging might mislead you into thinking it's about something else.