The American Football Coaches Association brings its annual convention to the Indiana Convention Center on 14 to 16 February 2027. The venue's event record forecasts 7,000 attendees and carries the window as an all-day booking at 100 South Capitol Avenue. The association's exhibitor page prints the same dates and describes more than 7,000 coaches and support staff from high school, college and professional programmes.
The published frame
The convention opens on a Sunday and closes on a Tuesday. The 2027 convention site carries pages for attendees, schedule, app, exhibitor information, housing and more information. Its housing page states that housing will open in July.
The exhibitor page carries what an exhibitor buys: inclusion in the AFCA housing block, convention credentials, and the option to reserve a meeting room or hospitality space at the convention hotel on request and subject to availability. Exhibit space runs through the association's Wave System. Diane McPheeters is Director of Exhibits & Sales at (254) 754-9900.
The Friday-to-Wednesday working window
12 February 2027 falls on a Friday. 17 February falls on a Wednesday. A Friday arrival and a Wednesday release hold five nights: 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 February.
The published show is three of those nights. A delegate who arrives on Saturday and leaves on Tuesday holds three nights. A supplier who stays through the close holds the longer Friday-to-Wednesday stay.
Two times settle which nights the block carries. The association publishes no exhibitor move-in window and no hall closing time on the exhibitor page. Ask for both in writing, then set the first night and the last night against them.
The two-night minimum
Each property in the block sets its own minimum stay. Ask every shortlisted hotel whether a two-night minimum applies to the whole stay or to the weekend nights alone. Ask the convention hotel the same question, because a two-night minimum on the peak nights turns a one-night delegation into a two-night booking.
A five-night block trades length for rate. Ask the hotel to price the block per night rather than as one total, so the Tuesday and Wednesday nights can be released if the show closes early.
The cut-off
Room-block software vendor Blocks describes a cut-off that commonly lands about 30 days before arrival, flexing between 21 and 30 days and reaching 45 days on peak nights. That is the vendor's account of common practice.
Measured back from a 12 February arrival, 30 days is Wednesday 13 January 2027 and 21 days is Friday 22 January 2027. The contract date is the hotel's deadline. The internal deadline for names has to sit earlier, because unclaimed rooms return to general inventory at the cut-off and the group still owes on its floor.
Ask for the cut-off as a single calendar date. Ask whether one date governs the whole block or each night carries its own.
The deposit
A deposit follows the cut-off at many properties. Ask for the deposit amount, the collection date and the refund term in writing before the block is signed. Ask whether the deposit is refundable against the pickup floor, and whether the hotel collects it or the housing service does.
Attrition on a five-night pattern
Attrition runs on the room nights committed, the pickup floor and the pickup achieved. Blocks describes a floor that often opens at 80 percent of committed room nights, measured at arrival on a cumulative basis, with damages net of the costs the hotel saves. The same guide prices lost profit at about 75 percent of the rate.
One hundred rooms on each of five nights commits 500 room nights. An 80 percent floor sets the obligation at 400. A pickup of 340 across the stay leaves 60 room nights short. At the guide's illustrative $189 rate, that reads $11,340.
Ask which basis the contract uses. A per-night reading puts the whole penalty on the peak nights and lets the soft nights pass.
What goes into the request
Send the group block form through the event portal and copy the association. Ask for the cut-off as one calendar date, the deposit schedule in writing, the pickup floor and the measurement basis, and the release review dates. Ask whether the two-night minimum applies to every night of the stay or to the weekend alone. Confirm the move-in window and the hall closing time, because those two times decide whether the block runs Friday to Wednesday or Saturday to Wednesday.
