2. Do zero work on it.
3. Set up a landing page.
4. Submit link to HN.
5. Gauge the response.
This new trend really pisses me off...
If someone puts the work into it I have no problem with it, but I know that there is a 99% chance that this thing has no substance.
Note: to offset the rant, I'm upvoting your submit.
Don't get me wrong, I love the concept of the events, and have had good experiences at some I've attended. But there is often a huge inequality between the number of devs and the number of business guys- if you're not careful you end up in a group full of business, but with little ability to execute over the space of a weekend.
So you end up with a weekend spent arguing over a domain name, setting up a LaunchRock page and sending out Google Spreadsheet surveys.