No Room at the Inn
Published 18 years, 3 months pastBoy, Dave wasn’t kidding: available hotel rooms for SXSW are mighty few and far between. I ended up at the Radisson, just like Dave and a few other people I know, and that was only by calling the Radisson directly instead of going through the SXSW housing desk, which doesn’t have any more rooms available there. The direct booking was more expensive than the SXSW rate, but at least I’m on the north side of the river—oh, excuse me, the lake. Plus I got a king suite for only a few dollars more than the conference rate for a single room in the Hilton, and there’s free wifi in the lobby.
I called a number of other hotels directly, and most of them were booked up solid. Apparently, there’s a very large writers’ conference ending the day before SXSWi begins, and that’s thrown extra monkey wrenches into the gears.
So if you still haven’t booked your room, don’t wait any longer, and try calling places directly even if the SXSW site shows them as sold out. Otherwise, you’ll be a mile or more away, pay through the nose, or both. I’d have booked sooner, except I wasn’t even certain that I’d be going until a couple of weeks ago, and in the chaos of prepping for AEA and our annual holiday party, I didn’t get to booking until today. Hopefully, you’ve avoided my mistake, but if not, don’t compound it.
So… anyone else staying at the Radisson? We could all geek out in the lobby some night.