Where to Stay for the CU Kansas State Game on Halloween Weekend

If you are the one a dozen people are counting on for the CU vs Kansas State game, this page answers one question plainly: where does your group sleep on the one weekend when Boulder is both a Big 12 town and a Halloween town. Sunshine Canyon Retreat is a single private house above Boulder that sleeps up to 14 in five bedrooms, about a twenty minute drive from Folsom Field, booked direct with us.

The game is Saturday, October 31, 2026, with kickoff at 12 p.m. Everything on this page about the game comes from the official CU Athletics schedule; everything about the house comes from our own listing. It is all checked and dated below.

The Weekend You Are Booking Around

• Game: CU Buffs vs Kansas State, a Big 12 conference game.
• Date and kickoff: Saturday, October 31, 2026, Halloween, at 12 p.m., televised on TNT, per the official schedule: cubuffs.com/sports/football/schedule/2026.
• Venue: Folsom Field, on the CU campus in Boulder, the stadium that sits at the foot of the Flatirons.

Game facts from the official CU Athletics 2026 football schedule, checked October 20, 2026.

Why Halloween Weekend Is the Hard One to Book

A noon kickoff on October 31 is a specific kind of weekend. Everyone wants to be in costume and in their seats by half past eleven, which means most of your group is arriving Friday night. It is a conference game, so the town is full, and it is Halloween, so the town is also loud and festive in a way it is not on a normal game Saturday. The practical problem for a group is not usually finding one room. It is finding enough rooms near each other, then finding a place for all of you to actually be together: the costume staging, the pregame meal, the pile of coats and decorations that fourteen people generate.

That is the case for one house instead of a hotel block. One address for the group chat. One kitchen for the Saturday morning pancakes before you head down the hill. One living room where half the group argues about costumes while the other half watches the early games.

The House: One Booking for Up to Fourteen

Sunshine Canyon Retreat sits in the canyon above Boulder, a private mountain home with the town lights below and the dark of the foothills behind it. The details that matter to an organizer:

• Sleeps up to 14 guests in five bedrooms with four bathrooms, so nobody is queueing for a shower at 9 a.m. on game day.
• Approximately 4,100 square feet, a full kitchen with modern appliances, a living room with a fireplace, and high speed WiFi throughout.
• A hot tub with mountain views and private parking at the house, which matters on a weekend when campus lots are tight.

House facts from our own listing at sunshinecanyonretreat.com, read October 20, 2026.

Game Day From the Canyon

The drive down to the stadium runs about twenty minutes. On game day itself, the university's parking office asks fans to expect heavy traffic and to build in extra time, and main campus public parking is limited and fills each game. The route most groups from our side of town use is the park and ride on East Campus: leave the car there, take the free shuttle to the stadium. It starts three hours before kickoff, which on Halloween means the first buses run while the morning is still cold and bright, and it keeps running for an hour after the final whistle. Folsom Field also has a clear bag policy, so leave the big costume backpack at the house and carry a clear bag. All of that is on the university's own game day parking page: colorado.edu/pts/special-events/football.

After the game, the smart move from our canyon is the unhurried one. The university says post-game traffic can take up to an hour to clear, so walk back to the shuttle, ride up the hill, and let the tailgate traffic drain while your group soaks in the hot tub and reheats lunch. By the time you drive down for dinner on Pearl Street, the town is yours again, and Halloween night downtown is worth staying out for: costumes everywhere, the whole of Boulder playing along.

Halloween Extras Worth Building Into the Trip

Do not overschedule it. The game is the anchor; Halloween is the atmosphere. Bring the costumes, pack layers, because late October in Boulder can be warm at noon and snowing by the fourth quarter, and plan one evening with nothing on it at all. The canyon does the holiday well: the porch light on, wind in the pines, and the whole town glittering below when you step out to look.

Check the Dates and Book Direct

If Halloween weekend is still open for your crew, do not sit on it. A home conference game against a Big 12 opponent on the one Saturday of the year when Boulder is in costume is exactly the weekend that fills first. Book direct with us below, and if you want the fuller game-day rundown, stadium to shuttle, we wrote that up too: CU vs Kansas State: A Halloween Game Day at Folsom Field.