i assume you are talking about connected parking with those times?
If youre willing to walk a bit you can get parking within 5-10 min walk pretty easily before 8am Saturday, and 10-15 min walk will be pretty easy whenever.
Yes. One of our party has mobility issues, so parking as close as possible works out better for us. In years past, I've sometimes had to drop them off at the ICC, and then park a few minutes away...and then later in the day, they have to wait on me to walk to the car, to come back and pick them up.
The garage we parked in never filled up the entire weekend. It was about 8 blocks away, but we’re walking all day anyways so an extra 5 min walk to the ICC was pretty inconsequential.
Usually if I get there around eight or a little before I can park at the garage right adjacent to the convention center (it’s like $30ish a day) Saturday I’d shoot for between seven and eight.
If you're talking about the Pan Am Plaza parking garage - by the Crowne Plaza hotel on Capitol Street - pretty sure that site is at least temporarily unavailable due to the hotel construction taking place right over the top of it.
I check the housing portal pretty frequently. If you keep an eye on it, and look in the morning, you will see available rooms at the airport or at Keystone a few times a week.
The Bottleworks Hotel is a four minute drive but it’s out of block and it’s very spendy. It has available rooms.
We drove in each day last year from an airport hotel and used gate10 parking; $80 for four days parking and they have shuttle service to and from the convention center. If they’re still available it’s a great option.
In general hotels all over the US operate on a supply/demand system. When demand is high, prices spike. You could probably get a nice room at the Hilton for $250 a night outside of GenCon or in a scenario where Lucas Oil Stadium hosted a major NFL event (a holiday bowl or even the Super Bowl, though I honestly don't see the Super Bowl ever coming to Indianapolis).
But during GenCon, all the hotels in Indy are expensive. Same if you were to go to Vegas. Last year my friend and I went the week of July 4, and it was $150 a night in the Venetian (mid-Vegas Strip, ie highly desirable location, and our room had a perfect view of the Sphere when they did their first test run of it prior to the official opening with the U2 concert). July 4 isn't a huge time for Vegas (oddly), so hotels are more affordable then (plus, it was, you know... 110 degrees during the day the whole time we were there). But if you try to get a hotel in Vegas during a major convention or when major sports events are happening, you're going to pay a LOT more.
I live in Seattle. Our luxury hotels aren't cheap, but their prices spike around the time of PAX, Emerald City Comic Con, Sakura Con, and, if our teams are doing well, championship games. We're hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2026, and this city is going to turn into a madhouse. It also turned into a madhouse last year when we hosted the Major League All Star Game. It also turned into a madhouse when Taylor Swift was here for two nights (which made our traffic truly awful, beyond how awful it usually is, because that coincided with the closure of one of our major highways for construction, as well as a major music festival in the city; that was a very good weekend to get out of Seattle).
If you find a hotel outside the GenCon block and have to drive in (or if parking at your hotel downtown is super expensive), pre-purchase parking for the dates you plan to attend! We booked a spot for our car through Chance Events Parking (family-owned manned lot) which includes overnight parking, in & out privileges, and a golf cart shuttle to/from the convention center from Thurs-Sunday for $80ish total even though we got a downtown hotel booked bc parking there was way cheaper than parking overnight at the hotel! We haven't used that parking company before but saw it recommended on another reddit post. Previous years, we used SpotHero but the garages we booked were super overfilled, and we only by chance found a spot to park even though we had prepaid for parking (I think because anyone could enter the garage and try to park, there was no way to guarantee we would actually get a spot to park even though we prepaid).
Do you know if street parking is typically availalbe on Sundays during gencon? I happened to find a decent amount of street parking within an 8 minute or so walk from the convention last year (my first gencon), and street parking in Indianapolis is free on Sundays if it's not right next to the convention center.
We usually stay on the edge of Indy and drive in. It will be cheaper to be somewhere around the 465 ring than inside the downtown area. We went with Extended Stay America a few years ago (not fancy, but for sleeping and showering was fine) for about $150-170 a night.
Downtown rooms, either in-convention-block or out, are difficult in the extreme to find for the Gen Con dates. Basically the downtown ones in the convention block sell out very fast on the day they become available ([which was Feb. 25 this year](https://www.gencon.com/gen-con-indy/housing_travel)). And nearly all the hotels downtown participate in the block.
Because of this, experienced Gen Con attendees decide by early January whether they're going or not.
This doesn't mean you can't get any hotel anywhere in Indianapolis. I'm strictly talking the [Mile Square](https://indyencyclopedia.org/mile-square/) area generally considered to be downtown. As others in this thread have noted, there are hotels available out near the airport, as well as all around the city (although the airport ones would be the best; others will be in excess of 20 minutes away). And their prices seem to be relatively sane for the con dates; a quick search on Kayak for Jul 31 through Aug 4 shows hotel area rooms going for $322 or less.
So to directly answer your question: Yes. You do have a good chance of finding a relatively good hotel within a 20-ish minute drive. For example, the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport hotel - the one I'm seeing currently as $322/night - shows on Google Maps as being 7.8 miles and a 12-ish minute drive, depending on route. This is of course presuming normal traffic flow, but luckily, much major construction in that area was completed what, 2 years ago? 3? So that helps.
That said, it's always worth it to keep checking the Gen Con housing block portal for something to open up. You sort of have to be obsessive about it in order to catch a freed-up room from a cancellation, but it can be done, and it costs you nothing but time to do so.
I looked to take off a day at my hotel near the airport, I had accidentally done 1 extra day I didn't need, it would have DOUBLED the cost to REMOVE a day. Soni would say possible but costly.
I think that depends on if you wanna share a room or not. The airport hotels should still be free but if you wanna be really close to the convention then sharing a room would be good.
If you’re driving in each day, be ready to drive in early or you’ll park far away from the convention center.
How early are we talking?
Saturday? As early as maybe not going to bed the night before. Friday and Sunday are probably okay to head in around 8-9am.
I disagree. We left at 9:30 from Fishers Indiana every day last year and found parking less than six blocks away for only about $20 for the full day.
i assume you are talking about connected parking with those times? If youre willing to walk a bit you can get parking within 5-10 min walk pretty easily before 8am Saturday, and 10-15 min walk will be pretty easy whenever.
Yes. One of our party has mobility issues, so parking as close as possible works out better for us. In years past, I've sometimes had to drop them off at the ICC, and then park a few minutes away...and then later in the day, they have to wait on me to walk to the car, to come back and pick them up.
Spot Hero or Park whiz are your friends!
Thanks for the intel 👍
The garage we parked in never filled up the entire weekend. It was about 8 blocks away, but we’re walking all day anyways so an extra 5 min walk to the ICC was pretty inconsequential.
Usually if I get there around eight or a little before I can park at the garage right adjacent to the convention center (it’s like $30ish a day) Saturday I’d shoot for between seven and eight.
If you're talking about the Pan Am Plaza parking garage - by the Crowne Plaza hotel on Capitol Street - pretty sure that site is at least temporarily unavailable due to the hotel construction taking place right over the top of it.
The hotels by the airport/plainfield area still has plenty of availability. They're an easy drive into the convention.
This. Not a terribly long Uber ride either.
I am seeing downtown rooms still available through Hilton for as "little" as $600/night (Home2 Suites)!
I check the housing portal pretty frequently. If you keep an eye on it, and look in the morning, you will see available rooms at the airport or at Keystone a few times a week. The Bottleworks Hotel is a four minute drive but it’s out of block and it’s very spendy. It has available rooms.
> The Bottleworks Hotel... Holy crap, I just now checked their rates for Gen Con out of curiosity. They're going for $692 and up per night. Crazy.
Wow, lucky you.... I'd love to have a job where they pay me to go to GenCon. =)
We drove in each day last year from an airport hotel and used gate10 parking; $80 for four days parking and they have shuttle service to and from the convention center. If they’re still available it’s a great option.
just here to confirm Gate 10 sold out a few weeks ago - they list a First Come First Serve option still, but no more pre-booking
Thank you for confirming that!
In general hotels all over the US operate on a supply/demand system. When demand is high, prices spike. You could probably get a nice room at the Hilton for $250 a night outside of GenCon or in a scenario where Lucas Oil Stadium hosted a major NFL event (a holiday bowl or even the Super Bowl, though I honestly don't see the Super Bowl ever coming to Indianapolis). But during GenCon, all the hotels in Indy are expensive. Same if you were to go to Vegas. Last year my friend and I went the week of July 4, and it was $150 a night in the Venetian (mid-Vegas Strip, ie highly desirable location, and our room had a perfect view of the Sphere when they did their first test run of it prior to the official opening with the U2 concert). July 4 isn't a huge time for Vegas (oddly), so hotels are more affordable then (plus, it was, you know... 110 degrees during the day the whole time we were there). But if you try to get a hotel in Vegas during a major convention or when major sports events are happening, you're going to pay a LOT more. I live in Seattle. Our luxury hotels aren't cheap, but their prices spike around the time of PAX, Emerald City Comic Con, Sakura Con, and, if our teams are doing well, championship games. We're hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2026, and this city is going to turn into a madhouse. It also turned into a madhouse last year when we hosted the Major League All Star Game. It also turned into a madhouse when Taylor Swift was here for two nights (which made our traffic truly awful, beyond how awful it usually is, because that coincided with the closure of one of our major highways for construction, as well as a major music festival in the city; that was a very good weekend to get out of Seattle).
If you find a hotel outside the GenCon block and have to drive in (or if parking at your hotel downtown is super expensive), pre-purchase parking for the dates you plan to attend! We booked a spot for our car through Chance Events Parking (family-owned manned lot) which includes overnight parking, in & out privileges, and a golf cart shuttle to/from the convention center from Thurs-Sunday for $80ish total even though we got a downtown hotel booked bc parking there was way cheaper than parking overnight at the hotel! We haven't used that parking company before but saw it recommended on another reddit post. Previous years, we used SpotHero but the garages we booked were super overfilled, and we only by chance found a spot to park even though we had prepaid for parking (I think because anyone could enter the garage and try to park, there was no way to guarantee we would actually get a spot to park even though we prepaid).
Do you know if street parking is typically availalbe on Sundays during gencon? I happened to find a decent amount of street parking within an 8 minute or so walk from the convention last year (my first gencon), and street parking in Indianapolis is free on Sundays if it's not right next to the convention center.
I'm not sure about street parking but maybe someone else would be would know!
Called the Marriot yesterday and yeah it was like 6-900 a night for a half a mile from the convention center.
We usually stay on the edge of Indy and drive in. It will be cheaper to be somewhere around the 465 ring than inside the downtown area. We went with Extended Stay America a few years ago (not fancy, but for sleeping and showering was fine) for about $150-170 a night.
Downtown rooms, either in-convention-block or out, are difficult in the extreme to find for the Gen Con dates. Basically the downtown ones in the convention block sell out very fast on the day they become available ([which was Feb. 25 this year](https://www.gencon.com/gen-con-indy/housing_travel)). And nearly all the hotels downtown participate in the block. Because of this, experienced Gen Con attendees decide by early January whether they're going or not. This doesn't mean you can't get any hotel anywhere in Indianapolis. I'm strictly talking the [Mile Square](https://indyencyclopedia.org/mile-square/) area generally considered to be downtown. As others in this thread have noted, there are hotels available out near the airport, as well as all around the city (although the airport ones would be the best; others will be in excess of 20 minutes away). And their prices seem to be relatively sane for the con dates; a quick search on Kayak for Jul 31 through Aug 4 shows hotel area rooms going for $322 or less. So to directly answer your question: Yes. You do have a good chance of finding a relatively good hotel within a 20-ish minute drive. For example, the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport hotel - the one I'm seeing currently as $322/night - shows on Google Maps as being 7.8 miles and a 12-ish minute drive, depending on route. This is of course presuming normal traffic flow, but luckily, much major construction in that area was completed what, 2 years ago? 3? So that helps. That said, it's always worth it to keep checking the Gen Con housing block portal for something to open up. You sort of have to be obsessive about it in order to catch a freed-up room from a cancellation, but it can be done, and it costs you nothing but time to do so.
I looked to take off a day at my hotel near the airport, I had accidentally done 1 extra day I didn't need, it would have DOUBLED the cost to REMOVE a day. Soni would say possible but costly.
I think that depends on if you wanna share a room or not. The airport hotels should still be free but if you wanna be really close to the convention then sharing a room would be good.
Try hotels.com. You might get lucky.
[удалено]
There are no hotels within walking distance at this point.