Tag: Austin Hotels View All Tags
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Hotel Lobbies / Twitter / → All Tags
Guide to the Hotel Lobby Scene at SXSW
Holy growth spurt. HotelChatter had not graced the halls of the Austin Convention Center for SXSWi in six years, but when the opportunity knocked to head to Austin for 36 hours of south by madness we jumped on a plane, and my has the interactive portion grown. No longer confined to the closets of the convention center the 2010 gathering was spread out over three hotels and the convention center. Of course, this made for a crazy hotel scene, the bell of the ball, Foursquare, even offered a "hookup" badge if you hit enough hotels late at night.
As far as price, let's get this out of the way up front, any hotel on this list is going to cost you 2 or 3 times the usual rate if you try to book during SXSW.
Here is our guide to the who and what of this years SXSW Austin hotel lobby scene. Who we spotted where, and what lobbies registered the highest signal to noise ratio. Oh, and don't think just because SXSWi is over you can't use this for the Music and Film portion of the festival, which starts today.
Tags: Snapshot / SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Boutique Hotels / → All Tags
After Social Media Overload at SXSW, Here's Where We Slept Last Night
It's our SXSW Hotel revealed!
HotelChatter was only in Austin for one night of SXSW but we ended up scoring one of the 14 rooms at the Hotel St. Cecilia. This here is room #8, one of the three studio rooms.
We liked the spaciousness of the room and the hard wood floors (the fur rugs didn't bother us but they may bother PETA.) We also dug the view of Austin from the semi-private back porch area.
The hotel is about a 15-minute walk to the Convention Center, which seems do-able but was made miserable today by pouring rain. Still, the hotel's super cool design and attention to detail won out here. And the fact that it was super quiet. No Foursquare-Gowalla showdowns here.
Room rates are a little pricey, about $350 for a studio room (on a non-SXSW weekend) but there is free WiFi and free parking. Hallelujah!
Tags: Hotel WiFi / SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / → All Tags
Four Seasons Austin Might Not Be Making a Killing from WiFi Fees
If you're one of the lucky ones to be absent from the Twitterverse today then you are missing out on the constant updates from SXSW attendees. Half of the tweets we don't even understand since they are full of software names, hash tags and inside jokes.
But if you've been following @HotelChatter today, then you know that one of us is attending SXSW as well. Here's what our very own MarkJ had to say about the WiFi scene.
I can tell you there is free WiFi throughout Austin convention area via SXSW network -- and that the conference is taking place in three hotels as well as the convention center this year.
However, if you skip on over to the Four Seasons Austin, Mark says the WiFi is definitely not free but rather $11 per day. Judging from this picture, it doesn't look like too many SXSW attendees are keen on paying this fee.
On the bright side, while the Hilton Austin may struggle with "For Square", their WiFi is free so says @Taylorchoi. Awesome. And stay tuned tomorrow as we'll have our post on our hotel stay in Austin then.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / → All Tags
It's Slim Pickings as SXSW Hotels Are Going Fast
Gone are the days that South by Southwest was a sleepy music festival for music fans and journos. Thanks to the addition of the film and interactive portions, the 10-day event in Austin is now as big as the Internet! And you know what that means? (Cue Debbie Downer trumpet sounds.) Fewer hotel rooms.
In fact, those film and internet types have gone and taken all of the official SXSW hotel blocks for their dates—March 12–16—but there are still some rooms available for the music dates, March 16–20.
Tags: Hotel Hype / W Hotels / Austin Hotels / SXSW Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
W to Bring 'Cowboy Cool' to Austin in December 2010
That's right, "cowboy cool" is coming to Austin in December 2010 when W Hotels open their second Texas property. (The first was the legendary W Dallas.) But fortunately, the place won't cater to just cowboys.
Setting the stage for contemporary luxury and cool stylings, W Austin headlines the vibrant Second Street. In a city sizzling with hot music and buzzing with high tech, unleash your inner soul man, rock god or indie hipster in our paean to power pop.
Yes, this place is going to be insane when the SXSW music festival comes into town.
The hotel amenities look sparse right now but this is a W. You can expect a hip lounge and a hipper restaurant, a Bliss spa, a pool and in this case, W residences attached to the hotel. As for the opening date, the hotel even goes so far as to give a specific day, December 9, 2010. As always, we'll be watching.
Tags: Celebrity Scoop / Austin Hotels / Kevin Connolly / → All Tags
Kevin Connolly Flies in Playmates To Spice Up His Stay at The Driskill
If you play a guy on TV that's always used to having an "entourage" of hot girls around you, giggling and agreeing with everything you say, we guess it must be hard to go anywhere without these fembots. How else to explain Kevin Connolly's (aka "E" from Entourage) BYO-Playboy Playmates incident at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas?
Kevin Connolly knows poker and Playmates go together. For a poker tournament the "Entourage" star and a group of buddies organized at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, a couple of dozen Playboy Playmates were flown in just to keep things lively.
Hmm...we've heard of people bringing their own pillows and toiletries with them to their hotels but never their own Playmates. Maybe Playboy should start offering this service to hotels then?
Rooms at The Driskill start at $309 for a room with two queen beds. The suites, which include the Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson Presidential Suite, start at $414 a night.
Tags: Summer Cocktails / Hotel Cocktails / Hotel Bars / Four Seasons Hotels / Austin Hotels / → All Tags
The Ginger-Chile Mojito From the Four Seasons Austin
We've kicked off our Summer Cocktails series where we profile fun new summer drinks that hotels are making. Got one we should know about? Send us the recipe with a photo of the drink. Otherwise, enjoy and @reply us when you're wasted!
Guests hitting up the Four Seasons Austin should try out some of the hotel's "Summer Sips" being served in the hotel's lobby lounge from now through the end of September. These cocktails are fun, fruity and most importantly, packed with alcohol!
The hotel's mixologists have introduced five new summer drinks, available for $12.50 each: The Ginger-Chile Mojito, The Sparkling Sangria, The Terlingua 75 (served with Patron tequila), a Cucumber Martini and a Pineapple Mojito. We were able to get our hands on the Ginger-Chile Mojito recipe which we've listed here so you can try it out on your own.
Tags: Hotel WiFi / Austin Hotels / Omni Hotels / SXSW Hotels / → All Tags
SXSW Attendees Minus Hotel WiFi Equals Disaster at the Omni
By now, most of us are well aware of the major AT&T snafu that happened down in Austin at this year's South by Southwest. Basically, the cell service provider was not equipped to handle the massive amount of iPhones that convention-goers were packing — not to mention the heavy twittering, texting, and emailing they were probably doing. Yikes. Not good.
And almost as bad as a big ol' AT&T fail is a SXSW hotel in Austin with crappy WiFi. Sadly, this was the case at the the Omni Austin, where one blogger and SXSW attendee reports the WiFi was mostly down. Oh noes.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / → All Tags
What Hotel Rooms Can You Get for SXSW?
Despite the recent reports that signal music festivals might be dying, everyone's favorite Texan music fest--South by Southwest--is still very much on again this year. If you have the time to get to Austin (perhaps the downfall of our economy has freed you up a bit, eh?), hotel rooms are available but not quite affordable. We have a feeling Austin is trying to milk this event even harder in the wake of the economy's collapse.
We checked our hotel rates search engine for March 13-16--prime festival time and found the Hyatt Place Central Austin for $109 a night. This hotel is about five miles from downtown and it involves a freeway ride. But if you are a music geek who needs to upload or edit music, video, bootlegs, whatever, remember Hyatt Place has all the geeky tools you'll need to make that happen.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Options Dwindling for SXSW Festival
It’s almost time for Austin’s annual blowout music event, SXSW, and you know what that means: Come March 12, a heaving mass of skinny-jeans and bearded bloggers will descend on the hot streets of Austin for 10 days of music festival madness. Also, with this starting in less than three weeks, hotel rooms are getting scarce.
If you want to stay in one of the official SXSW hotels, your options are paltry — particularly if you want to stay through the whole festival. At this writing, the SXSW website lists four not-particularly-central hotels with availabilities: Candlewood Suites-South (doubles $123), Marriott-Austin South (doubles $149), Crowne Plaza (doubles $156), and Barton Creek Resort & Spa (doubles $199). Though all the downtown hotels seem to be booked, SXSW runs pay-to-ride shuttles ($30 unlimited pass) during daytime and nighttime shows to and from the other official hotels.
The Country Inn & Suites-North (doubles $114) and Embassy Suites (doubles $172) are available all but the first night, if you can stomach the late start. Or, scour Expedia for deals that started around $67 when we searched. Just remember that cabs can be near impossible to catch in the height of SXSW, so that cheap hotel in the hinterlands might not be the sweet deal it appears to be.
[Photo: bre pettis]
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / → All Tags
Hilton Austin Still Has a Few Rooms Left For SXSW
If you're planning to go to South by Southwest in Austin this year, we have some news for you: hotels are gettin' pretty full already. You need to get your game up and start booking.
We started checking individual hotels' websites for stays that ran March 12-23 (the festival runs March 13-22), but the Hilton Austin came back with absolutely no availability on any of those dates — which was curious, but not impossible since the hotel is adjacent to the Austin Convention Center, where many of the SXSW activities go down — so we investigated further.
According to Expedia, if you're really set on the Hilton Austin (it's nice and it's convenient; easy, easy), it can be done if you're only staying for the first weekend of SXSW (Thursday through Monday). But you'd better book it now and be prepared for a $349 rate.
If you're down for staying a few miles out of downtown, The Doubletree Austin does have rooms available for the entirety of SXSW for $118 a night — but, again, you'd better get to booking now. Rooms in the more upscale (read: not Super 8) hotels are lookin' scarce around the city.
Tags: Hotel Openings / Boutique Hotels / Austin Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Austin's New Vinyl-Friendly Saint Cecilia Spins Us Right 'Round
We have to begin this post by saying that Austin's newest boutique property, Hotel Saint Cecilia, has one of the coolest hotel websites we've seen in a long time. Seriously; check it out: it has an old school cinematic vibe and it just swallows you up into the hotel's whole vintage-chic ambiance. We love it.
That said, this newcomer onto the Austin hotel scene is named for the patron saint of music and poetry — appropriate for Texas' coolest art and culture hotspot. Accordingly, the 14-room hotel features little odes to the art forms throughout: from killer soundsystems in the rooms — equipped with both turntables and iPod docks — to a library chock full of films and books on poetry, poets and musicians and an extensive collection of vinyls available for guests to check out and bring to their rooms.
Hotels In: Africa | Asia | Australia | Caribbean | Europe | North America | South America
Our Publications:
Jaunted | HotelChatter | VegasChatter
