Big Event Coming to Town? Your Spare Room (or Couch) Could Be Worth More Than You Think

Anyone who’s tried to book accommodation near a concert venue, a stadium or a festival site knows what happens to prices. A room that normally goes for $150 a night can climb to three or four times that once 40,000 extra people turn up in the same city for a weekend.

That gap between normal prices and event prices is why more people are quietly renting out a spare room, or even just a couch in the classic couch-surfing style, for the one or two nights an event is in town. It’s a small window of effort for a decent chunk of cash.

Event weekends aren’t like other short stays

Most short-stay accommodation content is about holiday lets: properties booked out for weeks at a time by people on a proper trip. Event stays work differently.

The demand is short and sharp. You’re not committing your home for a month, just for a night or two around a specific date you already know in advance. Guests tend to be less fussy too. Someone flying in for one night to see a band isn’t expecting a boutique hotel experience. They mostly just want somewhere clean, safe and close enough to walk or grab a short ride to the venue.

Pricing also behaves differently. Because every hotel nearby is booked out and marked up, even a modest room, or a couch if that’s all you’ve got, can fetch a price that would be unrealistic on a normal weekend. People who’ve tried it report earning anywhere from $50 to a few hundred dollars for a single night, depending on the city, the event and how close they are to the action.

How people are actually doing it

There isn’t one platform built specifically for this. Most hosts end up piecing together a few different options.

The big, well-known short-stay booking platforms let you list a spare room for just the nights you need, with built-in reviews and payment handled for you. Community and hospitality-exchange platforms, built around the classic couch-surfing model, appeal to hosts who want something more casual and lower effort than a full listing. And in the lead-up to a major concert or festival, local Facebook groups and event forums often spring up where locals offer a room, or sometimes just a couch, directly to visiting fans.

Whichever route you go, a few basics are worth sorting out first. Be upfront about exactly what’s on offer, whether that’s a whole place, a private room or just a couch. Set clear check-in and check-out times that line up with the event schedule. And it’s worth checking your state’s short-stay rules, since some councils and strata or body corporate arrangements put restrictions on this kind of thing.

Is it worth it?

For a night or two around a big event, especially if you were planning to be out at the game or the show anyway, the numbers tend to stack up well. It’s not going to replace a salary, but for the cost of clean sheets and a bit of tidying, it’s one of the easier ways to turn spare space into cash for a night.

If there’s a major event coming up near you, it might be worth finding out what your spare room, or even just your couch, could be worth.

Note: flatmates.com.au is a share accommodation platform for longer-term flatmate arrangements. It doesn’t currently offer couch-surfing style listings.