The published delegate mix
The INFORMS Annual Meeting 2026 runs Sunday 1 November to Wednesday 4 November at Moscone Center South, 747 Howard Street, San Francisco. The organiser's exhibiting and sponsorship page carries a demographics block headed 2025 Annual Meeting Demographics. The numbers read 6,000+ attendees, 90 percent holding a master's degree or a PhD, 42 percent students, an 85 percent academic audience, a 12 percent industry audience and 3 percent other.
That block describes the prior edition, because the same page invites exhibitors to inquire about the 2026 meeting. The organiser's live line for 2026 reads more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts. The same sentence appears on the organiser's home page.
Three nights carry the room demand
The meeting runs four calendar days and three nights. Self check-in and registration open at 7am on Sunday and run to 7:30pm. The closing plenary ends at noon on Wednesday, so the Wednesday night carries no programme. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday each carry published evening events.
A Saturday pre-conference day adds a fourth night for the delegates who attend it. The agenda grid opens the Combined Colloquia at 7:30am, and the CTL Teaching Excellence and Networking workshop runs 7:30am to 6:30pm on Saturday at the Marriott Marquis.
Three nights at the organiser's published scale of more than 6,000 attendees is more than 18,000 room nights if every delegate stayed all three. That figure is arithmetic on the organiser's own scale line. The organiser publishes no pick-up figure and no room-night count.
Two block hotels sit within 400 metres
The official room block holds two properties. The San Francisco Marriott Marquis sits at 780 Mission Street and the InterContinental San Francisco sits at 888 Howard Street. Geocoded coordinates and a haversine measurement put the Marriott Marquis about 335 metres, or 0.21 miles, from Moscone South, and the InterContinental about 376 metres, or 0.23 miles. Both figures are straight-line measurements.
The organiser publishes no shuttle service between the two properties and the venue. The venue's own page puts BART and MUNI Metro at Montgomery station for Moscone North and South, at Powell station for Moscone West, and Caltrain at 4th and Townsend Streets, with every station a few minutes' walk from the building.
Rate channels and the 8 October cut-off
Early registration pricing ended on 2 September 2026 at 11:59pm EDT. Regular pricing runs $900 for a member, $1,250 for a nonmember, $400 for a student or retired member and $510 for a student or retired nonmember. The organiser publishes no one-day registration.
The group rate requires 10 or more member or nonmember registrants from one organisation, and the organiser requires the group to be arranged before any registrations are submitted. The rate is $675 per member registrant and $945 per nonmember registrant, with no retroactive adjustment for anyone who registered at the regular rate. Group rates do not apply to students or retirees, so the published 42 percent student share sits outside that channel.
The housing block's published cut-off date was 8 October 2026, and that date has passed. The portal's support note, stamped 8 October 2026, routes new reservations to a list of additional nearby hotels. The same note states that reservations made through that option sit outside the group and are not eligible for the INFORMS group discounted rates.
Block rooms are restricted to meeting registrants. The organiser states that it reviews the reservations list regularly and cancels unregistered bookings without further notice.
The organiser publishes no sleeping-room rate on its meeting pages. The housing portal states that the published INFORMS group rate requires a booking through the portal.
Food and beverage splits by building
The registration fee covers the technical sessions, the receptions, the coffee breaks and the exhibit area. The organiser states that meals other than the receptions are not included in the fee, and that all meals sit on the attendee's own account.
Coffee and snack breaks run daily. The organiser publishes vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free options at the coffee and snack breaks and at the receptions, and the reception menus sit in the event mobile app.
The Welcome Reception runs 6:30pm to 8:30pm on Sunday, and the Communities Fair shares the window. The organiser describes food stations and beverages at the reception, substantial enough to enjoy while mingling and lighter than a full dinner.
Ten named breakfast and luncheon functions sit in the organiser's special events table, and all ten carry the Marriott Marquis location label. The community business meetings table lists 30 Moscone records, all starting at 6:45pm. None of them names a breakfast or a luncheon.
Evenings cluster on Monday
Community business meetings and receptions run at Moscone South on Monday 2 November and Tuesday 3 November. All 30 records start at 6:45pm and the published end times are 7:45pm, 8:15pm and 8:45pm. Twenty-seven of the records run on the Monday. The meeting agenda gives the community window as 6:45pm to 8:45pm on both nights.
The exhibit hall runs 11am to 4pm on Sunday, then 9am to 5pm on Monday and Tuesday.
A Midday Crowd Sits in the Midday Slots
hotelSlots publishes four slot names: morning 6am to noon, afternoon noon to 6pm, evening 6pm to midnight and overnight midnight to 6am. A day-use room sells the same hours.
The afternoon slot covers the Monday and Tuesday exhibit hours and the second half of the Sunday programme. An operator with rooms inside the SoMa ring prices those hours against a delegate list of more than 6,000.
The San Francisco Day-Use Shelf
dayuse.com's San Francisco page carried 20 listed properties on 15 October 2026, nine of them inside the city, at $91 to $159 including booking fees. The nine-card mean is $128.
The city cards include the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in Chinatown at $116, Hotel Zeppelin in Lower Nob Hill at $138, the Axiom Hotel at Union Square at $122 and The Mosser at $91. The platform states its discount line as up to 75 percent off an overnight stay.