Hello, everyone! Writing this to ask if anyone has any tips, tricks, or hints to get me kickstarted on my journey to Chicago unifieds! I would love to hear from anyone who has some sort of experience with the process of scheduling, booking, etc. etc.
Thanks in advance!
I highly recommend staying at the Palmer House Hilton. It’s nice not to have to go outside, although some schools have their auditions elsewhere in the city.
Also, print out the convention space floors plans-- there are many floors and each floor is different. Go to the PHH Website, click on Plan an Event, on the left; then scroll down a little bit and find Related Links-- click on Meeting Space (PDF) and print the floor plan pages. My son appreciated knowing where he was going when it was audition time.
Others will chime in with their good suggestions…those 2 are mine.
We chose NOT to stay at Palmer house. 3 out of D’s 6 auditions were not there (NYU, Boston, Syracuse) so we would not have been able to take advantage of not having to go out. We picked a central location (about 10 min walk north on Michigan ave by river- though we took cabs - it was cold) We loved having some distance from all of the chaos of the Palmer. Others love the energy there- to each their own.
Another tip is that the Art Institute is only a couple blocks from the Palmer house. Great place to go if you have some time between auditions to recharge. (At least if you love art- which D and I really do)
@toowonderful @SU88BFA Thanks so much guys! So thankful for you taking the time to write this!
There was a blizzard this past Unifieds and Chgo weather is notoriously unpredictable (more on that in a minute) so if at all possible, I would fly in one day earlier than you would think. You may not need it (hopefully) but if you are planning to do all these one-in-a-season auditions, it may be worth the extra $ and time just to be safe.
Back to Chicago being unpredictable - this winter is supposed to be mild and we just had the biggest November snow in 100 years.
We loved staying at the Palmer House. Lots of dining, shopping, and points of interest close by. D did not find it chaotic and loved the energy in the hotel, but things were down a little last year due to the snow (maybe its nuts in a year without a blizzard on Sunday). The double-bathroom rooms are huge. You pay more, but get free breakfast, snacks, fruit and soft drinks on the Executive Floor, plus your own private elevators. Some people may get a free upgrade due to points.
I second the comment to fly in early - several schools now hold auditions and dance calls on Sunday, so a Saturday arrival is well worth it, if not Friday. If you arrive on Saturday and do not have a really early start on Sunday, consider getting tickets to Second City - always a hilarious show.
There are many opportunities for walk-ins. If you have the time and energy, doing some walk-ins may result in finding some great fits that you did not have on your list. If you want to audition for the UK schools (and there will likely be several there holding walk-in auditions), you will need a to have a Shakespearean monologue ready. D and her classmates had a blast last year doing walk-in auditions.
We also really liked the Art Institute. Fantastic Impressionist and 20th Century American Art collections. D also had fun strolling the streets in the area around the hotel with her friends (after the blizzard).
Walking a few blocks to Do-Rite Donuts by the Goodman Theatre is well worth it. These are not your average donut shop donuts, these are transcendental pastries of other-worldliness.
admission to the Art institute is free Thursday evenings if you need a post audition cool down.
Another cool place to wander around is the Chicago cultural center. Free admission, always something going on, and just a few blocks from the Palmer house.
Also the CTA el system is literally the easiest train system to learn, if you get on any train soon enough you’ll end up in the loop.
I second everything @EmsDad said about staying at Palmer, especially regarding the executive floors. We saved money on food by having every breakfast, snacks, and probably half of our dinners there. (Free appetizers are offered each night which really can be meals.)
When D wanted to be surrounded by energy, we went down to the hotel lounge. When she wanted to escape that, we hung out in the executive floor lounge. We did much more of the latter; in fact, we only did the former a couple times.
We’ve gone to Chicago a lot, so didn’t want to do any sightseeing. D preferred to relax in the hot tub at Palmer, which we did once a day. We watched a couple movies in our room, too. Part of this was probably that we went to NYC unifieds, as well, and we did sightsee there.
We arrived on Friday, and D had an audition Saturday morning. This gave us plenty of time to wander the Palmer so that she knew the lay of the land for auditions. At an earlier visit to Chicago during spring of her Junior year, we went into the hotel and peeked into some of the spaces used for auditions, which helped her visualize, but it was nice when we arrived for Unifieds to be able to get really familiar with where exactly programs would be located before the masses arrived. We did not do anything similar for NYC Unifieds, and that was fine, too, though; but, Chicago Unifieds is more spread out and crowded. Arriving early also gave us peace of mind because of the blizzard.
Also, D loved the energy of Unifieds and enjoyed wandering the halls, checking out programs, and auditioning, but, at the end of the day, she also loved having another place to chill (the executive lounge and the hot tub) besides our room.
I’m agreeing with @EmsDad and @myloves. We stayed on the executive floor at the Palmer House which included breakfast in the morning, appetizers at night, and fruit and drinks during the day. There was also a business center if we needed to print anything. It gave us a comfortable place to go if we needed to get out of the room. And if D just needed room to herself to get ready and warm up for an audition, it gave me a comfortable place to get out of her hair.
We prepaid our stay at the time of booking and got a very discounted rate. (However there would have been no refund if we cancelled) Call the hotel directly to get the best rate possible and ask them for whatever special packages or discounts they can provide. We found staying at the Palmer House was very convenient.
You do have to consider your child. D LOVED the energy at Unifieds, but had friends who much preferred on campus visits. I think D felt she could focus solely on her audition at Unifieds where most on-campus auditions included “other” things like campus tours, sitting in on classes, etc. which she found a bit draining - mainly because she was just anxious to get to the audition portion of her visit. D also had lots of friends from various summer camps going through the audition season with her, so she knew tons of people at Unifieds and really enjoyed seeing them all. But, again, she had friends who really wanted to keep to themselves during their auditions and preferred to socialize another time. Neither approach is better than the other. You just have to know what suits your child best.
Check rates at Palmer House for different arrival days. We found that arriving on Thursday or Friday cut the room price in half for the entire stay, saving a lot of $$$ (more than paid for the extra night).
I recommend staying at the Palmer House for purely selfish reasons! I could hang out in our room rather than the lobby when D had her auditions. I am a bargain hunter and thought about staying at a lower cost hotel within walking distance, but I am very glad we didn’t go that route. It was worth it not having to go back and forth, especially with the horrible weather conditions. Tip#2: As Dusing2 said, the Fri/Sat nights before Unified starts had much lower rates. I booked a separate reservation for Saturday night at about half the cost of the rest of the week, but they let us keep the same room throughout both reservations. Tip#3: Hilton offers an early check-in or late check-out for a small fee, which was worth it for us because we arrived at 9am and got right into a room. Later that day at about 4pm there were still many people waiting to get into their rooms and the lobby was a madhouse. Tip#4: I recommend getting a “BeltBox” (or as we jokingly called it…“the red velvet jock strap”!) for vocal warm-up time in the room.
This may be way off topic- but the talk about the Palmer House made me think of something I thought would be worth sharing. Don’t be afraid to follow your own drummer. Obviously the people above had positive experiences at the Palmer- and that is great. I remember stressing over where to stay- pros/cons of walk ins etc. I read CC a LOT during the planning and scheduling D’s audition season. I got more help and advice here than I could ever repay, and I am forever grateful. BUT there are times when it would freak me out too. We could stay for free 10 min away- or could pay for Palmer house. In the end- it was the free that made the decision - but I freaked out about it- b/c “everyone” on cc said the Palmer was the only way to go. (And went 7 rounds with my husband about it) It was only after being there that I realized that not only was the travel issue between venues negligible (and again, would have been there anyway b/c half of auditions were not official “unified” schools) and being away was good for D. Same thing with walk ins- I had read so many great stories here - and nagged D about it incessantly. She didn’t want to do it- and I should have listened to her rather than fight b/c “everyone” on cc loved walk ins.
My point is- all the suggestions offered in this site are wonderful- and the people offering then have only the best intentions. But even if “everyone” says something is a good plan- know your kid and trust your gut
I would think if the majority of your schools are at the Palmer House it would make the most sense to stay there. For LA Unifieds we stayed at the same hotel as Unifieds and my daughter enjoyed the energy that the kids around her gave off. We had two off site schools (SUNY Purchase and BU) and it was necessary to drive to those. I can’t imagine how we would have handled it if there was bad weather and we had to maneuver though a city we were unfamiliar with during a snowstorm. There was ample opportunity to find quiet time and space when needed.
I have relatives that live in Chicago about 15 minutes from the Palmer house and I plan on staying with them during unifieds, though I’ll probably end up spending most of my time at the Palmer house squeezing in auditions. Anyway, I sure hope staying at the Palmer house isn’t the only way to go about it.
@toowonderful and @ParachuteBoy, I DEFINITELY would have chosen differently if a 10-15 minute commute meant having somewhere to stay for free. $-) I agree that no one should feel obligated to stay there. Parachute, if you work with any college coaches, they are pretty good about letting the kids hang out in their suites (at least MTCA did). The hotel is huge…there are lots of good spaces to hang out or even get a little quiet time during any down time you might have.
^^^ I would’ve stayed at another hotel if it had been free, too, but Palmer was free for us; H arranged business meetings in Chicago that week, so he was able to expense the stay. Lucky us! However, if there wasn’t a free choice at Palmer or elsewhere, I would’ve still liked to stay in the executive lounge, especially during the blizzard. Only 2 of D’s auditions were outside of Palmer, with one basically next door.