Cheers of seniors, a crowded stadium, and thousands of friends and family members. Graduation is coming quickly. But while students spend 4 years to complete their degrees, their family may need to spend half that time looking for a place to stay on the graduation weekend.

Representatives of some local hotels said in order to take part in the spring commencement,  families need to stay in dorms, rent a house from Bloomington residents or book a room far away in Nashville. that’s because hotels fill up years–yes years–in advance.

Ziting Tian is going to graduate this May. She took her senior portrait weeks ago, purchased round-trip flight tickets for her family three months earlier, but she is scrambling to find a place for them  to stay on graduation weekend. she started two years ago.

“I tried to book a hotel at that time, but most of the rooms are sold out and just a few left, and they are all very expensive,” Ziting said.

Because of excessive demand, the rooms price in town double or even triple from $230 to above $600 during graduation weekend. Although some families regard Airbnb as another solution, they too are almost fully booked and the price at that week is much higher than usual.

Graduate Bloomington, the newly built hotel on Kirkwood, is already sold out. They started to accept the advance reservations last October, a full month before it was completed.

As the largest hotel in Bloomington, the Biddle Hotel – attached to IMU – cannot accommodate 10,000 students on graduation weekend. They used to use a“lottery” to decide which visitors gets the reservation. However, as the number of students rises, the reservation request is taking the place of the “random” method.

The hotels are not allowed to accept booking one year in advance, so they provide a request form for visitors.

“We try to do first- come first-served,” said by Biddle Hotel manager Need Meagan, “But last year we opened up the format at 8a.m. and within the first minute we got about 400 requests.”

As  graduation comes closer, the employees are getting back to the people who expressed interest in the order form. the Biddle staff asks for further customer information and coordinates the room size and the type of beds to accommodate as many people as possible.

In order to attend the graduation ceremony of their children, some parents do not hesitate to book rooms in communities 30 minutes away include Ellettsville and Nashville, in Brown County.

If you are having trouble finding your family a graduation weekend room or planning to prepare in advance, visit the Bloomington website for more information.