The Portland National College Fair ran two sessions at the Oregon Convention Center, 18 and 19 October 2026. Sunday ran 1:00 to 4:30 p.m. Monday ran 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The pair adds to six and a half hours of floor time.
The organizer publishes no attendance figure for the fair. Its invitation to schools states the draw in one line, "Over 200 diverse colleges and universities," and stops there. A revenue manager pricing the next cycle works from the roster and the clock.
The night the calendar forces
The Sunday window sits in the afternoon and closes at 4:30 p.m. The Monday window opens at 9:00 a.m. A person working both windows sleeps in Portland on the night between them. That night is the only room night the calendar forces.
What the roster records
The participating-institution list on the fair page runs 221 records. They break into 217 institution entries, three marked as sponsors and one marked testing only. The three sponsors are US Army ROTC, 7Sage College Prep and North Avenue Education. The testing entry is GTCF.
The list as it stood on 23 October carries one field per record: the institution name. It holds no arrival date, no headcount and no room requirement. It documents who holds floor space, and a hotel that wants the room demand builds that count at its own desk.
The roster names institutions from outside the region, including the University of Strathclyde, Loughborough University, the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia. An institution travelling from the United Kingdom carries the longest published distance to the hall. The nights stay with the booking.
Free entry removes the ticket
NACAC runs its National College Fairs free and open to the public, and the invitation repeats the point for Portland. Free admission removes the ticket as a demand signal. It leaves the arrival date as the separator a desk can record between a fair stay and a city stay.
The bus count is the organizer's own
The invitation asks every school group to file its transport plan, and that form is the organizer's record of coaches arriving. Student drop-off and pick-up run in front of the convention center on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Coach parking sits at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. The center has four turnouts, two on NE Holladay and two on NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, and PBOT will cone off the longer MLK turnout when traffic troubles the streetcar.
What the desk captures at check-in
Seven fields answer the pricing question. Arrival date, so a Sunday arrival separates from a Friday one. Departure date, so a Monday close that becomes a Tuesday flight separates from a Monday departure. Rate and rate code, with the source of the booking. Channel. Party size. Parking requirement. And one question the desk asks out loud: which fair are you here for.
The arrival date carries the most weight. A guest who arrives Saturday holds a night the Monday session does not need. A guest who arrives Monday morning and leaves Monday afternoon holds none.
Pricing the next cycle
Two comparisons set the fence. The first is the realised rate on the Sunday night against the same property's rate on a Tuesday after a Monday close. The second is the Sunday night against the Saturday night, because arrival day decides which of the two a given institution books.
NACAC's fair calendar carries no 2027 Portland date as of 23 October 2026, so the repeat of the Sunday and Monday shape is an assumption. One number does exist for the next cycle. NACAC prices a spring 2027 booth at $825 for members and $1,045 for non-members, with an early-bird rate of $770 and $990 that expires 17 December. A hotel can date the next buying decision from the booth payment before the fair date is posted.