Nearly exactly a year ago I wrote a piece about how cheap hotel rooms were a thing of the past, and getting a hotel room at a few shows – SPX and NYCC – was getting harder. I also vowed to book hotel rooms where required much earlier in advance.
Well, I didn’t do that.
But in at least one case, I couldn’t.
As I noted last year, hotel rooms for the Small Press Expo, one of the premier indie shows of the year, sold out very very quickly, because the show is held in one particular facility and everyone wants to stay in the same hotel. I was relegated to the only other hotel in Rockville/North Bethesda, the Canopy, but it turned out to be really nice.
It appears that this year, there never were any hotel rooms for the show available! Me and a few other folks were trying to book a room but the website said “hotel information coming soon.”
And yesterday, this sad graphic.
Womp womp.
As mentioned, hotel room competition is fierce for rooms at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. Attendees are usually locals, so no hotel rooms are needed. That said, a lot of comics folks have traditionally come down from NYC and the rest of the East Coast, so lodging is an issue. In my own case, I kind of saw this coming and booked a room at the Canopy again, although it’s twice as expensive as last year, so a roommate was needed and secured. The lesson: BOOK YOUR ROOM EARLY!
But lots of GOOD news about SPX, always one of the best shows of the year.
Badges have been revealed by Ngozi Ukazu, Cara Bean, Claire Connelly and Chris Gooch.
Exhibitors have been announced!
The program guide cover by Yuko Ota has been released!
And the poster by Max Huffman has been floating around for a while.
So whether you have a room at the inn or not, it’s going to be a grand time.
