One Saturday, One Rooming List
The 2026 Discover Big Ten Football Championship Game kicks off at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday 5 December at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The conference pairs the two teams with the best records in conference play, so no programme knows its destination until the regular season ends. Plan for a Friday 4 December arrival, one Saturday on the ground and a Sunday departure.
Lucas Oil Stadium publishes a clear bag policy for the game.
Where the Party Goes
The Indiana Convention Center lists Big Ten Football Championship FAN FEST for 5-6 December 2026 with a forecast attendance of 70,000. The venue describes the event as sitting directly ahead of the game at adjacent Lucas Oil Stadium. The two buildings sit on Capitol Avenue, the Convention Center at 100 S. Capitol Avenue and the stadium at 500 S. Capitol Avenue.
Downtown holds 7,100 hotel rooms, and 4,700 of them connect to the Convention Center by skywalk. The venue counts 200 downtown restaurants within walking distance. Skywalk closing and opening times are event-dependent, with a rule of thumb of an 11 p.m. lockdown and a 6 a.m. reopening.
The venue publishes no fan-fest hall, no daily hours and no admission price for 2026, and the event-website control on its page carries no destination. The conference release of 15 September 2026 places the Fan Fest at the Convention Center on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 December, with more than 200,000 square feet of games, merchandise, giveaways and food. Fix the band's call time once the organiser publishes daily hours.
One Request, One Rooming List
A 160-person party is one booking request. bookMyTeam sends a single request to 50 or more hotels in the destination, and the hotels bid against each other from the first round.
The brand publishes the working vocabulary. A room block is “a reserved set of rooms held by a hotel for your team until a specified cut-off date”. A group rate is “a discounted hotel room rate negotiated for a block of 10+ rooms”. Most hotels work at 10 or more rooms a night, and some discount from five rooms depending on season and availability. A 160-person band at quad occupancy needs 40 rooms. A five-person coaching party does not reach the threshold on its own, and should still ask.
Late Roster Changes
A marching band roster changes late, and each change edits the rooming list. The brand defines the exposure plainly. An attrition clause is “a contract provision setting the minimum percentage of the room block your team must fill. If you book fewer rooms than agreed, you may owe a penalty.” The cut-off date is “the deadline by which team members must book their rooms within the block”, and unclaimed rooms return to the hotel's general inventory after it.
Settle the rooming list before signature, and settle the cut-off date after it. A block of 40 rooms held for a 160-person party leaves little slack if three rooms drop in the final week. One request covering the whole party keeps 39 booking transactions off the band director's desk.
The Weekend Rate
Neither the venue nor bookMyTeam publishes a rate for this weekend, so price the request on your own numbers. The group-rate calculator takes each hotel's published nightly rate for the dates and shows the estimated group rate beside it. Its default assumption is 10 percent, which the page calls conservative, and the same page states that bookMyTeam “regularly secures 15-30% off standard rates”.
The saving band appears across the site as 15-40 percent, against rack rates in one place, the best available rate in another and individual bookings in a third. Treat the band as the benchmark to negotiate against and the hotel's written confirmation as the number.
A worked example: 40 rooms at $179 a night for two nights is 80 room-nights, $14,320 at the published rate and $11,456 at a 20 percent group rate.
The Sunday Return
An 8 p.m. kickoff ends about 11:30 p.m., so the Saturday night is a required stay. That is the case for a two-night block: Friday 4 December arrival, Sunday 6 December departure, with the walk back from Lucas Oil Stadium inside the published skywalk hours and a Sunday coach call that puts everyone back on campus or at a desk.
The venue also lists the 38th Combat Aviation Brigade Ball for 5 December in Meeting Rooms 107-110, with a forecast attendance of 250. The walkable district carries both events on the night of the game.
What to Put in the Request
Send one request per party. Include both nights, the room count at the occupancy you will run, the arrival and departure windows, coach parking and gear storage, and any early breakfast need. Submitting is free, the rate carries no markup, and hotels pay the brand a separate commission on accepted bookings.
Confirm the fan-fest hours with the organiser, sign one block with the rooming list attached, and put the cut-off date inside your own calendar.
