No Vacancy for Razorbacks’ First Football Weekend

If you haven’t booked a room for the Razorback football opener against Georgia on Sept. 19 or the annual Bikes, Blues & BBQ on Sept. 23-26, you might want to stop reading this and get on the phone. Like now.

Rooms are basically sold out for the biker rally and they are filling up fast for the first football weekend.

The Clarion Hotel in Fayetteville has a couple of rooms still available for the football weekend. The rooms go for $269 for the entire weekend and guests must stay both Friday and Saturday nights.

For Bikes, Blues & BBQ on Sept. 23-26, the hotel is completely booked. They do expect some cancellations, however, and will start a waiting list three weeks prior to the biker rally.

Staybridge Suites is also completely sold out for both the first football game and Bikes, Blues & BBQ The hotel advises guests to call closer to the date of their desired stay, when they might “‘get lucky”’.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel has “‘absolutely nothing”’ available for Bike, Blues & BBQ. The hotel’s policy for football weekends is to first offer rooms to preferred guests. Once those have been offered, they will open up the remaining available rooms. But with the hotel undergoing renovations, it is only utilizing about half of its rooms, so chances of getting a reservation are slim.

The Inn at Carnall Hall and Fairfield Inn are also completely booked for both events.

Allyson Twiggs Dyer, director of the Fayetteville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hotels in Fayetteville are about 98 percent sold out for Bikes, Blues & BBQ.

There were still some hotels with availability for the first football game as of July 23, including the Clarion, the Courtyard by Marriott, Homewood Suites and Sleep Inn.

But Dyer predicts that once season football tickets show up in mailboxes, the phones will start ringing and those rooms will go like hot cakes.