TOPIC: GenCon 2017 Hotels Reservation Updates

Every year right after GenCon ends, I start the search for a hotel room. I use Booking.com, Trivago, Hotels.com as well as the website of the hotels. I have done it daily since last GenCon. In October, I grabbed a reservation at Homewood Suites by Hilton for $329 a night. I continued my daily daily search but nothing else came up. When the lottery news came out, I had came to the conclusion that that if I was able to get a room downtown, it would only be cheaper but not any better than what I had already book. My group was satisfied with Homewood Suites. I will still keep a look out daily to see if anything else pops up but knowing that we have a room, takes a huge load off.

I don't think I'm ever going to count on getting a room in the block again, the last two years I've gotten a room outside of the block. Which was a good thing, because each of the last two years the downtown rooms were sold out by the time my window opened.

Speaking of downtown rooms - I do see that the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites still has rooms for $440 per night for GENCON. That's not a bad price at all, all things considered.

Mike Steele wrote: I don't think I'm ever going to count on getting a room in the block again, the last two years I've gotten a room outside of the block. Which was a good thing, because each of the last two years the downtown rooms were sold out by the time my window opened.

Speaking of downtown rooms - I do see that the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites still has rooms for $440 per night for GENCON. That's not a bad price at all, all things considered.

I don't bank on getting a DT room. Last 3 years I've been really lucky. This year I rolled craps. Oh well. You're right $440/night is really fair all things considered. And I might have considered grabbing it, if I was more sure my group would show. Being just me, Pass. I can't justify the cost.

Will say looking through other sites further out. Found what looks like a true hidden gem.

www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/inns/ftharrison/lodging.html

$110 a night, and the rooms by description sound like private homes, with free access to a Championship golf course in the heart of a national forest reserve. 15 miles out from the convention center.

Bit of a drive, but damn.

Matthew Hayward ~ Admit it, your really having fun with the whiners on the Gencon forums aren't you? LOL

Shameless Plug:
If you volunteer full-time, you're guaranteed a shared room in a nearby hotel and it's free.

Druegar wrote: Shameless Plug:
If you volunteer full-time, you're guaranteed a shared room in a nearby hotel and it's free.

Plug away!

It certainly does add to the value of volunteering.

On a weird side note, I wonder how much of the housing block in general is consumed by all the vols across all the games and stuff. I know when I was a vendor I had access to a separate housing block.
Offering more and more games and more and more experiences/panels and whatever must mean a larger reserve of rooms for the people running things.

I really had thought that the opening of the JW would have resolved a lot of housing issues but those rooms seemed to have been consumed as fast as they were made available.

But to get back on topic, I wonder if somehow specific days weren't once again being effected because I was reading reports here that rooms were still available when I was getting first hand accounts from a friend that they were not. All I could assume was it was the day selection.

valetutto wrote: It certainly does add to the value of volunteering.

On a weird side note, I wonder how much of the housing block in general is consumed by all the vols across all the games and stuff. I know when I was a vendor I had access to a separate housing block.
Offering more and more games and more and more experiences/panels and whatever must mean a larger reserve of rooms for the people running things.

I really had thought that the opening of the JW would have resolved a lot of housing issues but those rooms seemed to have been consumed as fast as they were made available.

But to get back on topic, I wonder if somehow specific days weren't once again being effected because I was reading reports here that rooms were still available when I was getting first hand accounts from a friend that they were not. All I could assume was it was the day selection.

It's been mentioned a few times that there was a loss of rooms, due to them being switched over to office space. But I think we are now up from that, but not by a lot. Earlier this year, there was a study on if more hotels were needed, and the general consensuses was there really wasn't an immediate need, but growth showed there was room for more. (Note, this was over the course of a full year, not just for Gencon.)

Link

www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/08/18/indy-studying-convention-center-expansion-new-hotel-space/88969724/

For anyone currently looking for non-DT hotels, in the past year, several have opened up at I-69 Exit 210. It looks like they have non-block rooms available (no clue whether they even had rooms in the housing block). It is about 30 minutes from the convention center (when there is no traffic).

As far as the cursed housing portal, I have to wonder whether getting GenCon to stop being involved with housing (other than for exhibitors, guests of honor, and other people they "have" to have rooms for) would make the situation better or worse.

It has gotten to the point where unless I volunteer I can't afford the $2k it costs to go to gencon. I rather spend $1k on that on tokens and go to the other conventions that offer it. Fortunately I live in Madison and driving down to Celebration. For the longest time I didn't get any true dungeon in because I always had conflicts with the other convention and gencon just wasn't affordable so I didn't play for a few years. I tried to volunteer a year or two but being laid off one year and kid had a due date just after gencon made life impossible.

James J Krot wrote: It has gotten to the point where unless I volunteer I can't afford the $2k it costs to go to gencon. I rather spend $1k on that on tokens and go to the other conventions that offer it. Fortunately I live in Madison and driving down to Celebration. For the longest time I didn't get any true dungeon in because I always had conflicts with the other convention and gencon just wasn't affordable so I didn't play for a few years. I tried to volunteer a year or two but being laid off one year and kid had a due date just after gencon made life impossible.

Here's an interesting tid bit. Hotel room inventory has declined by over 1000 rooms in the last 5 years.

www.ibj.com/articles/60025-city-studies-need-for-more-hotels-after-losing-1000-rooms

Harlax wrote:

James J Krot wrote: It has gotten to the point where unless I volunteer I can't afford the $2k it costs to go to gencon. I rather spend $1k on that on tokens and go to the other conventions that offer it. Fortunately I live in Madison and driving down to Celebration. For the longest time I didn't get any true dungeon in because I always had conflicts with the other convention and gencon just wasn't affordable so I didn't play for a few years. I tried to volunteer a year or two but being laid off one year and kid had a due date just after gencon made life impossible.

Here's an interesting tid bit. Hotel room inventory has declined by over 1000 rooms in the last 5 years.

www.ibj.com/articles/60025-city-studies-need-for-more-hotels-after-losing-1000-rooms

But if you dive into the article. It's a little deceiving by just saying 1000 rooms when talking about our situation.

Yes there has been about 1k rooms less due to them being switched over to office space, closed due to the hotel shutting down, or what have you. But in the same breath, only 278 of those rooms were DT while the rest were on the rim of Indy. Now that doesn't mean we don't need more rooms. I know they are going to open 2 more DT in the coming couple years. And we likely need to see another 2-4 shortly after that.

Now one thing I don't know if they have looked at. contacting IUPUI about letting convention goers to rent out their open housing.