Dreamville festival goers have hotel reservations canceled leading up festival
Some fans planning to attend this weekend's Dreamville Festival in Raleigh were shocked to find out their hotel reservations were canceled.
Despite booking accommodations ahead of time, multiple people have reported that their hotels and Airbnb reservations were canceled in the weeks leading up to the music festival.
Ariel Harper said she got a phone call from the Holiday Inn on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh canceling her reservation.
"Unfortunately, we have to cancel your reservation, we're overbooked. Your reservation should have never went through," Harper said the representative told her. "I asked him why was I just now finding out about this. He said it was just brought to his attention and there was nothing he could do."
A front desk manager at the Holiday Inn on New Bern Avenue told WRAL that the issue is due to hotel renovations and that they are "only operating on two floors."
Dreamville Festival is planned Saturday and Sunday at Dix Park. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe are expected to attend. Last year, the event sold out and hotel reservations were hard to come by. This year, few tickets remain.
Tiara Jackson said she decided to double check her reservation at the Holiday Inn on Hillsborough Street after seeing issues like Harper's in a Dreamville Facebook group. Jackson is traveling to the area from the Washington, D.C. metro area.
"The only reason I even checked is because I've been in some of the Dreamville groups on Facebook and people were saying like, 'Hey, you all check your rooms because Airbnb is canceling and hotels are canceling," Jackson said.
When she logged in last week, Jackson said her hotel reservation was gone.
"They claimed that they reached out to me, and that my email wasn't set up to leave a message, which is not true," Jackson said.
Jackson said she was told that the hotel was sold out and overbooked. "I looked online, and pretty much every hotel in close proximity...is booked and the ones that weren't booked, were around $500 plus a night," she said.
The general manager at that Holiday Inn told WRAL that they overbooked by about eight rooms. He said they have given customers plenty of time to rebook at another location.
Jackson said she is now staying with someone she knows locally this weekend.
Both Jackson and Harper booked at hotels owned by IHG Hotels and Resorts. On the IHG official website, it states that credit cards are required for all reservations because it provides a "reservations guarantee, which applies if your reservation cannot be honored."
The policy means that, "if your reservation cannot be honored, the host hotel will provide a room at, and transportation to, another convenient and comparable hotel. The host hotel will also pay the full cost of the first night's lodging rate, plus tax, and any advance deposit will be refunded."
Harper said that policy was promised to her, but she is having trouble getting the new hotel to honor that. She said she spent an extra $400 finding another place to stay.
WRAL has reached out to IHG but has not heard back.
