Four nights and one forecast
The Indiana Convention Center forecasts 70,000 attendees for the 99th National FFA Convention and Expo. The convention runs Wednesday 21 October through Saturday 24 October 2026. The venue lists it at the Indiana Convention Center, and the event record's location field adds Lucas Oil Stadium.
Downtown Indianapolis holds 7,100 hotel rooms. Those rooms equal 10.14 percent of the forecast on one night. Seating the whole convention in them would need 9.86 occupants a room. The venue's expansion page lists FFA among the cornerstone conventions behind almost $300 million in annual economic impact.
The Wednesday check-in wave
Registration and badge pickup sit in Hall A of the convention center. The desk runs Tuesday 20 October from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday 21 October from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Thursday and Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Opening Session 1A starts at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The Housing Desk occupies Room 116. It holds Tuesday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it publishes no Saturday counter. The City Volunteer Desk sits in Room 111.
Entry to every convention venue runs a security check. Attendees present badges, and the check includes bag searches, metal detectors and wands.
Tuesday arrivals reach the hotel desk that evening. Wednesday arrivals meet the badge line and the housing desk on the same morning, so the front desk needs the badge windows on the shift brief.
Housing closes the week before
FFA closes convention housing on 23 September at 5 p.m. EDT. The last day to cancel a housing reservation without penalty was 2 September at 5 p.m. EDT. Three downloads carry the room inventory: the Chapter Hotel List, the Hotel Area Map and the Expo Sponsor Hotel List. Each sits behind a Box link that returns a script shell on a direct fetch, and the convention publishes no block rate. That leaves the open market as the comparable.
Engine reports an Indianapolis average of $134 a night for October, drawn from 1.2 million public rate observations between May 2024 and April 2026. Four nights at that average comes to $536. Engine defines its figures as par rates, the lowest publicly available price at the moment of each search, taken from searches made 10 to 180 days before check-in. October is the second-priciest month in that table. May carries the city's peak at $158 a night and February its floor at $107.
Saturday closes the run
Saturday 24 October carries the American Degree Ceremony and the seventh general session at 1:30 p.m. Badge pickup moves that morning to Lucas Oil Stadium, from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday daily registration costs $30, or $35 on site, and covers the American Degree Ceremony and Session 7 alone.
Full registration runs at $95 on the early-bird rate until 30 September at 7:59 p.m. EDT, at $115 on the standard rate, and at $120 on site from 20 October. The step from early bird to standard is 21.05 percent.
Food trucks park on South Street between Lucas Oil Stadium and the convention center from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The A to Z guide dates them to 29, 30 and 31 October, after the convention closes. Three food courts and the concession stands inside the convention center run during expo hours.
A 1:30 p.m. close puts 70,000 attendees into a checkout morning, and the housing desk keeps no Saturday counter. The checkout queue forms at the hotels.
The week the venue books around it
The venue's calendar shows the days on either side. The Midwest Multifamily Conference runs 15 to 16 October with a forecast of 950. Lucas Oil Stadium carries the Bands of America Super Regionals on 16 and 17 October and the Colts against the Tennessee Titans on 18 October at 1 p.m. The convention center takes no booking between 16 October and the FFA opening.
After FFA clears the buildings, the State Board of Law Admission Ceremony arrives on 26 October with a forecast of 1,800, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers National Conference runs 28 to 31 October with a forecast of 15,000.