Illinois-Chicago

Hotel Block for Marathon Weekend

Hi there!

My fiance and I are planning a wedding in the city on 10/7/2017 - the same weekend as the Chicago Marathon. We're already encountering issues with hotel blocks, and I wanted to see if anyone has planned a Chicago wedding on marathon weekend before. Any tips on hotels that are still willing to do courtesy blocks?

Here is who we have talked to (very short list, I know):
- Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart: will not offer hotel blocks during marathon weekend
- Marriott UIC Medical District: No courtesy blocks - we would be responsible for filling 80% of rooms.
- Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile: Courtesy block up to 15 rooms - we would be responsible for filling anything over that that we block off.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Re: Hotel Block for Marathon Weekend

  • KayDeeeKayDeee member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    edited June 2016
    http://forums.theknot.com/discussion/comment/7285062#Comment_7285062

    because of your chosen weekend you're not going to have the leverage needed to make concessions like not being responsible for all rooms but you can still try the site suggested in the previous thread I posted here.
  • edited June 2016
    @KayDeee  That website is awesome! It is resulting in so many more bids than Jetaport (not sure why that would be). Thank you!
  • I only just saw this thread. I'm not sure how far into planning you are, but, we'd also considered having our wedding on marathon weekend because venues were willing to cut deals. We didn't go through with it though.

    When choosing a hotel, be sure that guests can access public transit or the highway without cutting across the marathon course. If people need to take the blue line to OHare and can't get to a station without cutting across thousands of runners, you'll / they'll have a problem. Also think about station/highway access in relation to the road closures. People could probably leave the north Michigan ave area pretty early on Sunday, but closer to Merchandise Mart and anywhere further south is going to be closed a lot longer. If you did do the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart, at least the brown line connects to both the blue and orange, so that would be ok for airport access.

    Just please consider that. The point of hotels is for out-of-town guests, but out-of-town people may need to travel early in the morning, which will prove difficult with the way the course is laid out. 
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