Visitors to Chicago hotels, like the Blackstone Hotel in the South Loop, are likely to pay higher rates this summer. | Peyton Reich/Sun-Times
By Abby Miller | Chicago Sun*Times
Lollapalooza is typically the busiest weekend of the year for Chicago’s hotels, but 50,000 people flocking here for the Democratic National Convention this August are pushing hotel room rates even higher.
The average rate during the DNC is $534.88 a night, according to a Sun-Times search of downtown hotel rates during three major events taking place in the city this year — the convention, Lollapalooza and NASCAR Chicago Street Race Weekend. The search, which was conducted Thursday, looked at hotels within a one-mile radius of downtown Chicago.
The most expensive hotel with rooms still available for the convention, taking place Aug. 19-22, was $1,077 a night at the Langham, a five-star hotel on the Chicago River.
Lollapalooza, the four-day music festival held every summer in Grant Park, trailed just behind the Democratic convention. The average daily rate Aug. 1-4 was $485.24. NASCAR’s street race weekend, July 6-7, averaged $278.29 per downtown hotel room.
The convention was the only event for which some daily hotel rates climb above $1,000. The highest downtown hotel rates for Lollapalooza were capped at nearly $900, and NASCAR weekend rates are below $600.
“Our reliance has really increased on these major events supporting our hotels,” said Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association.
Hotel rates are supply and demand-based — prices climb and vacancies dwindle when major events come to Chicago. This often leads to compression, Jacobson said, when both business and leisure travelers coming to Chicago for reasons other than events tend to stay in the suburbs.
Read more here.