A Nine-Day Show With Two Named Hotels
The Indiana Flower + Patio Show runs March 13 to March 21, 2027 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds & Event Center, 1202 E. 38th Street in Indianapolis. The show fills two buildings, Expo Hall and West Pavilion. Marketplace Events produces the show.
The show's Show Info page lists two hotels under Accommodations. Hampton Inn NE Castleton Indianapolis sits at 6817 East 82nd Street, and Candlewood Suites Indianapolis NE sits at 8111 Bash Street. The same block names Lazy Sunday Rentals, a local women-owned Indianapolis vacation rental company, which takes 10 percent off direct bookings with the code LAZYINDYFLOWERSHOW. RV camping at the State Fairgrounds runs $40 plus tax per day with hook-up.
Each of those entries carries a name, an address and a website link. None carries a rate, a block size, a deposit, a cut-off date or an attrition term.
The show publishes its own hours and prices. Doors open at 10 a.m. every day. The show closes at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 13, Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20, at 7 p.m. from Monday, March 15 to Thursday, March 18, and at 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 14 and Sunday, March 21. Admission runs $15 at the door and $13 online, children aged 12 and under enter free, and the box office sells $5 admission after 5 p.m. from Monday, March 15 to Thursday, March 18. Parking runs $10 per vehicle per day.
What the Missing Terms Cost a Group
A group that books against a listing carries the risk itself. Ask each named property for five numbers before you commit: the nightly rate, the block size it will hold, the cut-off date, the deposit and the attrition floor.
The guides published by Blocks, a room-block software vendor, set out a written cut-off date, a pickup floor that often opens at 80 percent of the block measured at performance, a rolling release schedule at 90, 60 and 30 days before arrival, a resell credit, and damages net of the hotel's saved costs. Ask for a specific calendar date in the contract, and ask whether one date governs the run or each night carries its own.
Work backward from the cut-off to your own deadline for collecting names. A group whose sign-up list takes two weeks to finalise needs its internal deadline two weeks inside the hotel date.
The Shape of the Nine Days
Two weekends sit inside one run. The show opens Saturday, March 13 and closes Sunday, March 21, so the peaks fall on March 13 and 14 and again on March 20 and 21. Four quiet nights run Monday, March 15 through Thursday, March 18. Friday, March 19 sits between the two weekends.
Attrition on a Nine-Night Hold
Attrition is the penalty for filling fewer room nights than the contract commits. The Blocks guide describes a pickup floor that often opens at 80 percent of the block, damages net of the hotel's saved costs, and a lost-profit clause at roughly 75 percent of the rate.
Take an illustrative hold of 20 rooms on each of the nine nights from March 13 to March 21. The block commits 180 room nights, and an 80 percent floor sets the obligation at 144.
A group that fills 20 rooms on each of the four weekend nights and on the Friday, and 6 on each of the four quiet nights, picks up 124 room nights. The cumulative test reads 20 room nights short. A per-night test against a 16-room floor charges the four quiet nights 10 rooms each, which reads 40 room nights short. At the guide's illustrative rate of $189, the cumulative shortfall prices at $3,780 and the per-night shortfall at $7,560. A lost-profit clause at 75 percent of the rate cuts those figures to about $2,835 and about $5,670.
Ask which measurement the contract uses. Per-night measurement drops the whole shortfall onto the four quiet nights, which are the nights a nine-day show is least likely to fill.
The Release Date to Ask For
A long hold needs a way to hand rooms back. Ask for rolling review dates at 90, 60 and 30 days before arrival, with rooms above the group's current pickup released without penalty. The Blocks guide describes that schedule, and it adds a resell credit for released rooms the hotel refills.
Ask for the attrition measurement and the release dates in writing before the first name is submitted.
The Pool Is Wider Than the Listing
The Fairgrounds links a hotel booking list from its own Hotels page. That list carries 84 properties, from 3.20 miles to 9.97 miles off the grounds. Ask it for everything inside a five-mile radius, then ask those properties for a nine-night rate.
groupRooms lists 273 hotels in its Indianapolis directory and describes its scope as bookings of 10 or more rooms. The platform reports 103,857 hotels across 46 states, states that hotels typically respond within 24 to 72 hours, and advertises savings of 15 to 40 percent off rack rates. Those are the company's own claims.
One booking path is already priced. The Fairgrounds' own campground carries the $40 plus tax nightly RV rate with hook-up, available year-round with indoor showers, laundry, electricity and sewer hook-ups. It is the only accommodation tied to the show that publishes a number.
The Questions to Put in Writing
Ask for the rate by night. Ask for the block size the hotel will hold across all nine nights. Ask for the cut-off as a calendar date. Ask whether attrition is measured cumulatively or per night, and what the pickup floor is. Ask for the review dates. Ask whether unused comps convert to a credit on the master account.
The show names two hotels and one rental company and publishes no terms. The terms come from the contract you negotiate before the first name is submitted.
