Gators football weekends have for decades drawn students, parents, alumni and fans from across the country to North Central Florida, creating a rush for hotel rooms around home games.
With limited supply and increasing demand because of conference realignment and a surprising early season success for the home team, however, visitors are finding more than ever that finding weekend accommodations in the region can come with a steeper price tag.
Ainsley Ciavavella, who transferred to UF after one year at Florida State, was disheartened when her parents realized they couldn’t afford to attend a football game this year.
“What sucks the most is that it’s my senior year – and I’ve never had a proper parents weekend,” said Ciavavella, 22, a political science major from Fort Lauderdale.
To help, two of her relatives offered to come up from that city for a weekend.
“My aunt and uncle planned to come, but just their tickets were around $2,000,” she said. “Their only option to come was to stay in my apartment and leave early Sunday morning.”
This Gators season includes home games against SEC opponents Ole Miss, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt. With Florida ranked No. 16 with a 4-1 record this football season, excitement among fans and alumni has intensified.
For the remainder of the season, rates at hotels closest to campus average $ 919 a night for a home game – and as much as $1,707 for the Oklahoma game on Nov. 7.
Parents weekend coincided with the Ole Miss game on Sept. 26, which brought an even higher demand for tickets and hotel rooms across the area.
“A lot of people, including myself, do not have the funds to be spending a chunk of the money that’s meant for tuition, or for resources in the school, on something like a weekend for game day,” said Ariana Badra, 19, UF sophomore studying psychology from Miami.
Badra said she was excited for her parents to see their first football game in the Swamp after not being able to do so her first year at UF. She said she started looking earlier in August for hotels and game tickets for her family. By then, she said, rates were $500 a night.
“Maybe I’ll try even earlier, but it’s just as soon as the dates of parents weekend are released, everything honestly runs out,” Badra said.
Many fans and families from South Florida opt to stay in Ocala, but even that can be too cost prohibitive for most. Prices for homecoming weekend at some of the city’s top-rated hotels have rooms available from $122 to $311 a night on popular booking websites.
Those travelers may prefer staying at a cheaper hotel and spending a little more on gas and parking to make their trip as cost-friendly as possible.
Lodging is only one of the expenses fans face when traveling to Gainesville for a game.
As of Oct. 5, tickets for home games started at $111 on resale markets such as StubHub and Gametime, and as much as $3,516 for the South Carolina game on Saturday.
Scott Friedman, 42, co-founder of Ticket Talk Network, focuses on providing insights into live events and ticket prices. When looking at the surge in ticket prices for this Gators season, he said the Gators 4-0 start this season made costs even more expensive.
“Ole Miss – Florida,” Friedman said, “ I mean, it was just kind of one of those undefeated teams, and that’s just going to be a be a hot ticket for sure.”
The Gators game with the lowest-priced tickets is against Vanderbilt on Nov. 21. That day is the start of essentially a lengthened Thanksgiving break, when most students go home to be with their families. StubHub and SeatGeek prices for that game were at $69 as of this week.
“You’re going to have 30,000 people that are fighting for tickets, which is obviously going to increase prices with the parents coming in for the weekend,” Friedman said.
Myra Wherrell, 22, a Santa Fe College alum, said she had hoped for her family to come from Orlando to experience a UF parents weekend during her time in Gainesville. They could not, though, because they started looking for hotel rooms much too late: $600 per room a night.
With her brother now a UF freshman, she said, “When I found out parents weekend fell on the Ole Miss game, I made sure to have our hotel booked by January, so that our biggest cost would be our tickets.”
For the Oklahoma game on Nov. 7, Hotel ELEO and Hyatt Place Gainesville are already completely booked. On Expedia and Hotels.com, $899 a night at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Gainesville I-75 was the lowest rate available near campus as of Oct. 6.
Representatives from area hotels contacted for this story said they were unable to provide information detailing how their dynamic pricing works on football weekends – or they did not respond to calls or emails from WUFT News.
Despite the lack of transparency surrounding hotel pricing, families continue to feel the effects of rising rates when planning trips to Gainesville.
Dylan Reimer, 19, a UF sophomore studying biomedical engineering, said his parents considered buying flights from their home New York for parents weekend, but changed their minds after seeing the hotel rates. Reimer said they picked another weekend for an event held by his fraternity, Oct. 16-18, when hotel rates are less than $200, according to the booking sites.
“It will be a little easier for them to travel and stick around and hang out,” he said.
And yet Reimer’s disappointment lies in knowing his loved ones will miss a memorable experience of being in the Swamp for a football game.
“It’s a lively place, and you’d imagine there’d be more accommodation at a more reasonable price point,” he said.