TOPIC: Parking near the convention center tips?

It looks like this year I'll be staying outside of downtown.

I'm weighting the options of renting a car versus getting Ubers to and from the convention center.

Does anyone have any advice or recommendations regarding parking near the convention center during the con?

In particular I'm curious if:

a. Are there typically spots in the nearby parking garages that are connected via skybrdige, or are those often full during the con?

b. What should I expect in terms of daily parking costs?

c. Any other tips or advice for parking near the convention center?

Parking garages have spots, but tend to fill up early in the morning. I like the State Employee garage on West Street, but Thursday and Friday it fills up by 7:30 with State workers.

I'd expect you would pay $20 a day.

Do you mind walking 10 minutes or more or do you want to be close?

I've found uber or Lyft to be the cheapest/most convenient way to and from, but your millage could very if you have s lot of gaming stuff to bring with

Matthew, we've been in downtown hotels every year since 2003, but this is the first year we also had to get a non-downtown hotel. We were able to reserve a parking spot in a garage across the street from the convention center for about $130 for Thur-Sun. We preferred that over Uber so that we could stash stuff in the car if necessary.

I do have a couple of friends that did the Uber back and forth a couple of years, so either option is viable.

When you add in the cost of the rental car, it very quickly gets to be far more expensive than ubers

Mike's point about storage is a valid one in the other direction.

Gate 10's (south of Lucas Oil) pre-sale spots are sold out, but I understand they offer day passes on a first-come, first-served basis. However, I think day pass holders don't have in-and-out privileges. (People with multi-day passes can come and go as they please.) If you plan to arrive early each day, that might work. And offers the "place to drop off stuff" option.

I've also heard of people having good luck with SpotHero, ParkWiz, and other parking apps, but haven't used them myself.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: When you add in the cost of the rental car, it very quickly gets to be far more expensive than ubers

Mike's point about storage is a valid one in the other direction.

Wade, that's an excellent point I hadn't though of. It doesn't apply to us though as we'll have our own cars, we just live an hour from Indy.

BeLinda Mathie wrote: Gate 10's (south of Lucas Oil) pre-sale spots are sold out, but I understand they offer day passes on a first-come, first-served basis. However, I think day pass holders don't have in-and-out privileges. (People with multi-day passes can come and go as they please.) If you plan to arrive early each day, that might work. And offers the "place to drop off stuff" option.

I've also heard of people having good luck with SpotHero, ParkWiz, and other parking apps, but haven't used them myself.

I think my friend reserved our parking spot through ParkWiz.

Mike Steele wrote: I think my friend reserved our parking spot through ParkWiz.

Good to know that it is possible to use the apps to book a spot for multiple days.

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I think my friend reserved our parking spot through ParkWiz.

Good to know that it is possible to use the apps to book a spot for multiple days.

It was a bit tricky, my friend and I were both trying to reserve a spot for us in the same parking garage, with different apps/websites. For mine, it said we didn't have in/out privileges which clearly wouldn't have worked, but his gave us in/out privileges. I suspect mine was an error and we would have had them, but we didn't want to take the chance. I think the parking is probably 40%-50% less than what we usually paid for parking at the downtown Embassy Suites.

Thanks all for the info!

I’m renting a car either way so there’s no additional costs there.

I wonder if people from past years have experience with the Th-Su rentals? I’d be a bit concerned that there’s not going to be anyone around to enforce the reservation after 5 PM on Friday or so, and the ability to get spot will just depend on what’s available - maybe the pass gets you a card to a separate part of the garage?

You can often find street side parking in the morning behind Lucas oil as well. That's where I would park for build when I stayed at the airport