2016 accommodation and parking

Note: this information was for Nine Worlds 2016. We'll post updated information as we start to confirm more details about the 2017 event.

This page gives up-to-date details on accommodation and parking options for Nine Worlds. The information is available in text form, as a table and as a map. We'll update this page as options open up or close off in the run-up to the event:

Accommodation

The accommodation options include a cheap and friendly backpackers' hostel; townhouse bed & breakfasts of varying comfort level and room size; a boutique hotel; a couple of chain hotels. With all of them, you are the purchaser and should exercise your own judgment. To help with this, websites and TripAdvisor pages are included in the handy table. We've looked them over and agreed booking rates, but as is always the case we have limited ability to intervene in your relations with them:

Novotel London West

The host hotel booked out in less than an hour this year! However, we've agreed convention booking rates with lots of nearby hotels and hostels for Nine Worlds attendees. We've also found some additional car parking options. These are outlined below.

If you booked at the Novotel and would like to change to another hotel, you have the right to cancel until 72 hours before the event. You can also park your car elsewhere if you choose. Host venue accessibility is covered on the main access page; we are confident that the venue has good levels of accessibility overall.

Brook Green Hotel

A Young's pub with boutique hotel rooms upstairs, less than ten minutes from the convention. The sixteen rooms are all doubles, although two of them are feature rooms costing an extra £20/night. The rooms can have an optional child bed for a single under-12, but this should be stated at the time of booking. Rates include breakfast, wifi and Sky TV on demand. All of the rooms are upstairs and as such the hotel is not accessible. To book, phone during opening hours (see table).

Saba Hotel London

The owners of Saba run multiple B&Bs in townhouses spread over a hundred yards of Shepherds Bush Road, and will allocate Nine Worlds bookings among them. The room we looked at was clean and had modern furnishings. However, it was not much larger than the bed inside it. The en-suite shower and toilet were the same. Rate includes continental breakfast and wifi, and bookings are cancellable until 48 hours before the event. All of the B&Bs have steps at the entrance, and there are no accessible rooms. To book, phone Raza during business hours (see table) and ask for the Nine Worlds rate. Individual groups will all be placed in the same building.

A warning: there are a few unrelated establishments along the same stretch of Shepherds Bush Road. We haven't agreed rates with them, and dropped a number of potential B&Bs after visiting the premises or looking at their TripAdvisor reviews. We didn't visit everywhere, and you may find a good deal if you look, but please do some research first. Also, be aware that every B&B, hostel or townhouse hotel we've seen has steps at the entranceway, and most of the rooms are upstairs.

The W14 Hotel Kensington

The W14 is a townhouse boutique hotel located east and south of the Novotel, away from much of the other accommodation. The hotel say they 'have ground floor rooms on special request; however there are main 5 steps to get into the hotel where we can help the guest'. We've marked them as inaccessible, and would note that the Street View image above shows eight steps.

To book, call the hotel during business hours (see table) and ask for Viral or Animesh. You'll need to be clear that you're looking for the Nine Worlds special booking rate. Cancellation is 48 hours before arrival; however, if a single booking with more than four rooms cancels then all parties will be charged for one night.

HI Express Hammersmith

The Holiday Inn Express is located off King Street, a busy shopping street. The hotel has accessible rooms, and for families it has rooms with a sofa bed for up to two children aged under 18 at no extra cost. For both of these you should ask at the time of booking. Hotel parking is relatively inexpensive, but also not bookable and very limited, so there's a risk it might be full. To book a room, call Stela during office hours (see table) and ask for the Nine Worlds rate. Bookings include breakfast and wifi, and can be cancelled up to 72 hours prior to arrival at no charge.

Hilton Olympia

The Nine Worlds booking block at the Hilton was released on 1st July. You can still get in touch to see what they can offer, but our own rates no longer apply for new bookings. The Hilton is located a quarter of an hour along Hammersmith Road, although catching a bus reduces that to seven minutes door to door. It has all the usual large hotel amenities. The convention booking rate includes full breakfast and wifi. Onsite parking is managed by a separate company and runs about the same as the Novotel rate. Accessible rooms can be booked - you just need to add a request for this to the booking. Likewise for child beds to be added to a room. They have a limited number of each available. The cancellation deadline is 14 days prior to arrival.

K West

A former BBC recording studio on the edge of Shepherds Bush, now a large boutique hotel. This is one of the longer walks from this year's host venue at just under twenty minutes, although it's via quiet residential streets rather than the big dual carriageways. They have a range of single and double rooms, plus various upgrade offers including on-site spa treatments and the like. The basic rate includes continental breakfast. The hotel's bookable parking is now booked out, but it has a neighbouring NCP car park with reasonable parking rates.

There are two accessible deluxe doubles on the ground floor, priced at basic single and double rates according to usage, but which you'll need to phone up in order to reserve. There are a very limited number of rooms with a sofabed suitable for families with children, which can be booked at the executive room rate of £165 / night by phoning up. This rate includes 50%-off breakfasts for children rather than free breakfasts, and we have not shown the hotel as offering family rooms in the table due to these limitations. Cancellation and other terms are as normal and are shown on the website prior to booking. They also take phone bookings (call and ask for the Nine Worlds Convention rate). On a personal note, this hotel was astoundingly fast and thorough when it came to setting up a booking rate.

Car parking

Some accommodation options have their own onsite parking, and these are detailed in the individual sections above and in the handy table below. The Novotel has a convention parking rate. Other car parks include a large NCP car park up the road at Shepherds Bush, which is pre-bookable and has a decent rate at the time of writing. Some private or smaller parking options can be found through sites such as Parkopedia. And finally, the entire area has on-street parking with various rules:

Parking at the event venue

There is a car park onsite, with 240 spaces, which charges £1.50 per hour for convention or expo attendees. This means that three full days of parking would cost £108. There are 6 accessible, blue badge parking bays in the hotel car park. These are first come, first served, and are chargeable at the con rate of £1.50 per hour. These are served by the small lift which serves all floors, including the mezzanine level. We may be able to contribute to costs from the convention's access budget - get in touch with our access co-ordinator if this is important to you. Access from the car park is generally good for wheelchair users of all types.

The car park is built in the basement of the hotel, and can therefore be considered to be on the cramped side in terms of manoeuvring space, and has a height restriction for vehicles. However this does mean that all carpark spaces are covered and protected from the elements, as well as being relatively secure. For enquiries please call the hotel on 020 8237 7540.

Other car parks

There are other car parks nearby that charge lower rates. The two big car parks are:

  • The Kings Mall Car Park is ten minutes walk away, and charges £30.50 per 24 hours. There doesn't seem to be any way of booking spaces, and there's no information about disabled parking bays - we'll check that next time we visit Hammersmith but it would be unusual for them to be missing
  • The pre-bookable NCP West 12 in Shepherds Bush is across from K West, about eighteen minutes walk or twelve minutes by bus from the venue. Pre-booking is cheaper than pay on the day - current rates are £15/day if you join the free NCP membership scheme, otherwise £18/day. They have accessible spaces, although there doesn't seem to be an option to specifically reserve them in the booking process

These parking options are shown in the handy table and on the map below. You may also find Parkopedia of use in locating smaller local parking options.

Local on-street parking

Yes, there is still on-street parking in London, and it's free outside of certain hours. If you're considering trying to find some, you should take note of the times and areas covered by each 'controlled parking zone' (CPZ) rather than driving round on the off-chance. This webpage on the Hammersmith website links to all the information about what restrictions apply at which times, and includes a PDF map. For reference, Zone A (Mon-Sat 8.30am-6.30pm) covers central Hammersmith including the Novotel, and zones D (Monday to Friday 9-5) and E (Mon-Sat 9.00-8.30) and H (Mon-Fri 9-5) are all just round the corner. There should also be parking signage on the streets themselves. During CPZ operating hours, all spaces are off limits except in pay-and-display bays. The charges and maximum stay for these are also available on the Hammersmith website.

Please bear in mind that rules for use of blue badges on London roads may be different from what you are used to. The Hammersmith webpage also has information on this, and includes the following: 'Disabled badge holders may park in any shared-use or pay and display parking place or blue badge holder disabled bay for free and without a time limit. Disabled badge holders are also allowed to park for up to three hours on yellow lines as long as they are not causing an obstruction or breaking a loading restriction.' This means you cannot park in CPZ reserved bays during CPZ hours - you are only exempt from paying the pay and display, and must still avoid parking in CPZ spaces.

There are also online maps of blue badge bays across the UK that may be useful, BlueBadgeParking and PIE's parkingforbluebadges. They appear to show different bay locations, weirdly.

Access summary for accommodation and parking

The HI Express Hammersmith, Hilton Olympia, and K West have accessible entrances and accessible rooms. All of the alternatives have multiple steps or stairs and no accessible rooms, and may thus be inaccessible. There's accessible car parking on- and off-site. We can offer help with getting between venues, and the streets are mostly accessible. We have included basic accessibility status for each venue in the individual sections above and the handy table below, and the venues themselves have more information on their websites or by email. We've also put together some additional information about accessible parking and getting between hotels and the venue:

If you have questions or requirements that you feel aren't answered by our guidance here or in our access section, please get in touch with our access co-ordinator. We're trying to cover as much as we can at the outset, but there are always things we haven't thought of or had chance to sort out yet, and we would appreciate the opportunity to understand and assist in meeting your needs.

Getting around Hammersmith

Throughout this guide, we give walking time from the Novotel for each location. This is to give a feel of distances, and is not intended to imply that everyone should walk to and from the venue.

The pavements around the centre of Hammersmith generally feature dropped kerbs and access features. However, we haven't yet travelled routes to the hotel from each venue checking presence of access features in every case. We hope to do this on our next visit.

We are happy to cover transport costs between local off-site accommodation and the Nine Worlds venue for people with mobility issues. Please contact access@nineworlds.co.uk to arrange this. This also applies to transport between your car and your hotel if you park offsite locally.

Blue badges and disabled parking

We covered this in the on-street parking section above, but it bears repeating: the rules are different in London. Specifically, blue badges let you park on-street in pay-and-display areas, but not in reserved spaces more generally during CPZ hours. Check out the section on on-street parking for more details.

Additionally, while the Novotel car park and other car parks have disabled parking, a blue badge does not exempt you from paying.

A handy table

(source: live Google accommodation and parking sheet)

A map of accommodation, parking and other points of interest

(source: live Google event map)

Year: 
2016