FIRST Championship Hotel Program Update
December 5, 2024
We’re gearing up for an unforgettable 2026 FIRST® Championship as part of the FIRST AGE™ presented by Qualcomm season! The Housing Program will once again be a part of the FIRST Championship experience.
FIRST Championship is more than just an event. It’s a celebration of everything teams bring to our robotics community: hard work, creativity, collaboration, and the drive to make a positive impact. Last year, we introduced the new FIRST Housing Program for the 2025 FIRST Championship event, and we thank you for sharing your feedback regarding the program. We’re incorporating what we learned from you to ensure every participating FIRST Championship team continues to have access to convenient, reliable accommodations.
To help make the program a success for the 2026 FIRST Championship, all competing FIRST teams (including individual team members) are required to participate in the FIRST Housing Program*. Teams must secure their FIRST Championship spot by booking their housing through ConferenceDirect only, in addition to remitting their event registration fee with FIRST.
*Any teams located within 100 miles of the event are exempt from this requirement.
The Housing Program is an important part of the FIRST Championship experience and was designed with our community in mind to offer several key benefits. These benefits include:
- Secure Pricing: Through our partnerships with hotels, FIRST is able to negotiate and secure fair and guaranteed rates for rooms, protecting teams from any price spikes as we get closer to FIRST Championship, or caused by other events in the area. Our partner hotels are required to honor these rates for our community, and to avoid overbooking disruptions. This allows all teams to have equal opportunities to set pricing, even those that qualify close to FIRST Championship.
- Guaranteed Capacity: With tens of thousands of people from our community traveling in for FIRST Championship each year, securing enough hotel rooms for everyone at a fair price is one of the biggest challenges of hosting an event of this scale. This year, we will be welcoming over 1,100 teams to the 2026 FIRST Championship. The Housing Program allows us to partner with more hotels that meet the FIRST standards, which helps us ensure a consistent and positive experience for all attendees each year.
- Balanced Access: In past years, a large number of preferred hotel rooms were reserved by teams who had not yet qualified for FIRST Championship, leaving already qualified teams struggling to find accommodations. Our Housing Program offers a solution to this longstanding issue by allowing us to directly facilitate bookings and monitor inventory throughout the season. This ensures more access to both late-qualifying and early-qualifying teams.
- Quality, Accessibility, & Amenities: All hotels associated with the program have been reviewed to ensure that they align with our community standards and are accessible to all participants. The Housing Program helps us to ensure that the hotels hosting FIRST Championship participants are in areas that are either walkable or adjacent to the transportation systems and other infrastructure that participants rely on. While not all hotels offer the same amenities, each meets our baseline requirements while also offering a unique variety of additional amenities to meet individual teams’ needs, from parking for buses to complimentary breakfasts.
As we move through the competition season, we’ll continue to share updates on the 2026 FIRST Championship Housing Program, including team-focused amenities and convenience highlights, step-by-step booking instructions, and new video guides designed to help simplify the booking experience.
Stay tuned for more news in upcoming blogs and blasts. We’re looking forward to making the 2026 FIRST Championship our most inspiring, exhilarating, and unforgettable celebration yet!