The tulips outside the Sample Gates are blooming just in time for a long-awaited event — graduation. 

It’s been two years since IU was able to host an in-person commencement ceremony, and students are excited to be back in Memorial Stadium. 

But they’ll be the only ones, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Keeping the protocols in place that have kept us safe,” IU spokesperson Chuck Carney said. “I mean, the proof is in the pudding that we’ve had low positivity rates and I think that our students are used to this at this point. And they’ll certainly be willing to do it one last time as they leave.”

Friends and family will have to watch online — but that’s not stopping them from making the trip to Bloomington.

The hotels in Bloomington are practically booked, and the ones with vacancies still left are priced at close to $1,000 a night. 

Kerri Hunt, the mother of a graduating IU senior, had quite the time trying to secure a hotel room for graduation weekend. 

Hunt, who is from Green Bay, Wisconsin, booked an Airbnb in Bloomington originally because there were no hotel rooms left. But as it got closer to graduation, she checked through Orbitz again.

She found two rooms with free cancellation for $2,500, so she booked them immediately. She thought they might bring the whole family — grandparents and all — so two rooms would’ve been perfect. 

But she discovered the free cancellation policy was an error on Orbitz’s part. Then she learned the grandparents were not able to make the trip, so two rooms were too many.

“But it was enough that I was kind of having this like, trying to think well, ‘Who can I invite?’” Hunt said. “Because if we get stuck with those you can’t sell them, I don’t know if you can sublet that kind of thing. But he did make it right. The guy did.”

Hunt said they ended up giving her 24 hours to cancel the rooms. She did and, she says by some miracle, she was able to secure the last room at the Hampton Inn in Bloomington for graduation weekend. 

Even though Hunt went through quite the saga to get her graduation weekend hotel room, she said she understands why the pricing and demand is so high.

Hunt owns an Airbnb up in Door County, Wisconsin, and she said the key weekends are what make or break your season in the hospitality industry.

“If you don’t profit on those key weekends, it’s like not even doable to own these places,” Hunt said. “So, I do understand why they have to charge more for football and for graduation, and maybe home homecoming, those sorts of things. Because all those other times it’s just sitting empty, or they’re only able to charge a little rate. So I’m actually kind of okay with that higher rate.”

But most importantly, Hunt is excited to be with her daughter during the weekend and watch her graduate — even if it’s virtually.