Later this month, my wife and I have tickets to see Metallica at the brand new, 1.1 Billion dollar U.S. Bank Stadium. The stadium is the new home of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, and the concert will be one of the very first events there. We’re excited for the concert, as well as to get a look at the new stadium.
We didn’t want to have to deal with traffic and parking downtown, especially given the event taking place. The concert would also run late enough into the evening that we didn’t want to drive home afterwards. So, we were looking for a hotel room in close proximity to the stadium. We could beat traffic by arriving early, and just use our legs to get to and from the concert. Unfortunately for us, the hotels were one step a head of us as they expected a high demand for rooms that night and jacked the prices sky high.
Prices for a hotel room downtown Minneapolis on the night of the concert range between $400 and $600.
In an attempt to regain the upper hand against the hotel’s manipulation of their rates, we tried a different approach. We knew the Twin Cities has a light rail train as part of it’s public transportation system. We also know that one of the lines has a stop at the Mall Of America, which conveniently has hotels adjacent to it. We’ve even stayed at one several times. My wife called the hotel and got a quote for a room on the night of the concert for $197, a fraction of the price of a hotel room downtown.
Our tentative plan is to book a room at the hotel near the Mall Of America and utilize the light rail (cost of only a few dollars each) system to get to and from the concert. Our plan has some advantages and disadvantages:
Thumbs up:
- Save hundreds of dollars
- Easy access to transportation to and from the event
- Reduces travel time home the next day
Thumbs down:
- Travel time to the concert is about 25 minutes in each direction
Essentially, we’re sacrificing about an hour of our time to save hundreds of dollars. I think this is definitely worth it, especially since we bought an assigned seat, so we don’t have to try to get there early.
This sort of phenomenon is fairly common, location is everything. If there’s a popular event scheduled, hotels nearby will increase their rates knowing the people have no choice but to pay it. But, if you can figure out a way to put some distance between you and the event you can save some big money.
Have you ever experienced this phenomenon? Were you able to save some money by staying further away from the event? How much did you save?
That is definitely worth it. I would do the same thing. I was in New Orleans for a conference back in June/July with 4 other people. The hotel hosting the conference was $200 per night and I would have needed two rooms. I found a cheaper option that was a ten minute walk away and we all stayed in a two bedroom suite for less than $250 per night.
BAM! Nothing gives you a good night sleep like saving money, right???
Timely post. We are going to downtown Detroit for a concert this Saturday and explored the idea of trying to get a hotel room. Unfortunately, things are pretty contained right now from being able to get anywhere else via public transportation, as the bus system is pretty sketch and the light rail system that exists only goes around in a circle, though there is one under construction that will extend things a bit further. Still, options were very limited, so for us, we just decided to pass and will use Uber or Lyft instead.
Uber and Lyft are great options too. Hope you had a great time at the concert!