STAY AND PLAY

What is Stay and Play?

“Stay and Play” is the housing policy for acceptance into the Colorado Crossroads Girls’ Junior National Qualifier (S&P). The THS Company manages the policy for Crossroads.

To be accepted into Crossroads, each team with an official mailing address 40 miles or more from the Colorado Convention Center needs to book and use at least 12 hotel room nights at a tournament-approved hotel, booked through THS.

How does Stay and Play help my teams?

Rooms and Rates

Stay and Play leverage allows us to negotiate lower room rates and more availability of rooms for our hotel blocks. Without Stay and Play, a significant number of hotels in the best locations would be available only at rates significantly higher rates than they are now, or far fewer rooms would be available.

Rate Integrity

Stay and Play allows us to monitor “Rate Integrity,” meaning our block users receive the lowest group rates available for the tournament dates. (Some exceptions for previously contracted rates, such as AAA.)

  • If a hotel offers a lower group rate than we quoted, our Rate Integrity clause requires the hotel to lower group rates for everyone booked in our block. (Within 30 days of the tournament start, a hotel may sell rooms returned to the hotel from our block at lower rates.)

Room Type

Teams are guaranteed they will get the room type (double or king) they reserve; no more arriving later in the evening to find there are no doubles left even though that is what you reserved.

Room Block

We understand the desire of teams to have their players and chaperones in rooms close to each other. THS and the hotels make every effort to block each team together in the hotel.

Comp Rooms

As a result of implementing Stay and Play, THS convinced many of the participating hotels to offer a team comp room concession of “1 for 15” room nights  –  for every 16 room nights used by a single team, the 16th room night is comp. (Some hotels exempted. See Approved Hotel List.)

  • Previously the team comp concession at most hotels was 1 for 50.
  • In 2019, teams booking through Stay and Play at Crossroads received $119,988 worth of comp rooms directly from this concession.

Wide Price Range

THS contracts a wide variety of hotels for us to meet team needs. Our Approved Hotels rates ranged from $102 – $215, all within 20 miles of the Convention Center.

  • 40% of the blocked rooms are within walking distance of the Convention Center. Especially for the walking distance hotels, the rates are far below what the hotel normally charges.

Convention Center Impact

The city tracks verifiable room blocks to determine the economic value of the tournament to the local economy (the key word is “verifiable”). The higher the economic value of an event, the greater the willingness of the city to make convention center space available in the amount, at a reasonable price and on the desired dates for the tournament. This, in turn, helps to keep the costs of running the event in check and protects registration costs from major escalation year to year.

Personal Attention

THS sends at least 2 of its housing specialists to be on site at Crossroads during check-in times to assist any team that has a hotel problem during check-in. The on-site person is available at a dedicated phone number 24/7 from 24 hours before the tournament starts until the tournament ends to resolve hotel problems teams might encounter.

Frequently Asked Questions About Stay and Play

What happens if a team doesn’t have 12 room nights reserved?

At any time once a team is accepted into the tournament until the end of the tournament, if a team’s room night use falls below the 12-room night minimum (or, in the case of Platinum and Gold level Loyal Customer contracts, the reserved number of rooms), THS will contact you and you will have 24 hours to correct the situation.

After 24 hours, if the situation is not corrected, your hotel contract and your entry into Crossroads may be canceled. (See your hotel contract for specifics.)

What happens if my hotel contract and tournament entry are cancelled?

All hotel deposits and entry fees are non-refundable; canceling an entry would mean you forfeit these funds and you would be subject to the liquidated damages fees in the contract.

If you decide to re-enter Crossroads, you must start the entry process over and your application date (used to determine the order teams are accepted into Crossroads) becomes the date you complete the new tournament registration and hotel contract.

Why does THS, rather than Crossroads, contact us about Stay and Play?

In their role of managing housing reservations for Crossroads, THS may contact teams directly about hotel matters.

Why is Crossroads using a Stay and Play policy?

Stay and Play Policy is the single most effective tool we have to encourage hotels to work with us to provide room blocks for teams at group prices we consider reasonable and to encourage hotels within walking distance of the convention center to provide more rooms.

For example, in Denver almost 40% of all Stay and Play hotel rooms are within walking distance of the Convention Center.

Why isn’t the hotel I want on the Approved Hotels list?

We consider proposals from any hotel that wants to be on our Approved List. However, no one can force a hotel to offer a room block for an event; it is a business decision by the hotel.

Sometimes hotels have other business booked on the tournament dates, so they do not have any rooms or enough rooms available to give us a block. Some hotels offer rooms at rates we think are too high. (We’ve never had a hotel want to charge less than what we think is reasonable – it’s always the other way around.) Some hotels are just not suitable for youth sports teams or prefer not to do business with sports teams.