The government is issuing around 240,000 tickets to President Elect Obama’s inauguration on January 20. But many more people than that want to be there, and there are plenty of parties and other activities for them to attend. The big problem, though, is finding a place to stay.
Hotels were sold out long ago, and without a place to stay it’s basically impossible to be there. That’s where CrashTheInaguration comes in. The site is powered by AirBed & Breakfast, which we covered in August.
The service lets people rent out rooms or their entire home to travelers. Unlike services like CouchSurfing, they can also charge for the service, so it effectively lets anyone who wants to launch their own hotel in their home. AirBed & Breakfast charges a fee that averages around 10%; the rest goes to the person renting the room.
Cofounder Brian Chesky says that over 2,000 rooms have been listed for rent since the service launched. Later today CNN will be doing a segment on the CrashTheInauguration service, and I expect the number of listings to jump up sharply.
If you really want to attend the inauguration and you don’t have a hotel room booked, this may be just what you’re looking for. And if you live in or near DC and don’t mind a stranger in your home, you can make a few extra bucks come January.
Get a $20 discount as a renter on CrashTheInauguration for being a TechCrunch reader. Just type TechCrunch at checkout.
Why didn’t I think of this?!
This is a cool idea. Glad to see the startup tech community getting involved. I will blog about this on the NFIB Young Entrepreneur’s Blog I run. Gracias!
P.s. Live in DC…it is very exciting around here these days.
P.s.s. There will be some sweet Inaugural SWAG given away by a local company here. I’ll try to get the owners to contact you if they have time. As you can imagine, quite busy for them right now. I like their tech approach to a dinosaur of an industry (promo products).
Toodles and happy freezing your tushes off at the Inauguration!
Kathy and the Hot Mommas Project Team
Wow. This sounds exactly like the hotpads inaugural rentals, except their service is free.
Or hit up craigslist to find a place. A lot of people are jacking up prices to rent their house/apt out for the week.
Has anyone actually found a renter through this site? I’d imagine charging them an extra 10% on top of the rent turns a lot of people off.
I’ve used National Event Rental in the past to find housing for an event.
Cool ideas and good news for many people who want to go. But home owner should be careful about who they rent the space 4.
… safety, should be the first thing beside quick buck.
no thanks. Ill be couchsurfing it.
i like couchsurfing .com not everything in life u need to make money from … theres such a thing as goodwill
Roman, I agree that there should be some goodwill, but don’t you think that there is a major problem if everything is given away for free? There still need to be businesses and innovations that actually make money instead of just collecting eyeballs. If there is no money exchanging hands, economies slow down and you get the current financial situation we’re in now. More companies should be monetizing their sites instead of just collecting users.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party still has hotel rooms available, just 5 blocks from the White House
http://www.pade...s.com/node/1703