Sapporo Ice festival

Well, thanks to last minute planning, hotels are scarce and prices are rocket high for Feb 5 to 9 due to the festival.
Anyone has any ideas for accomodations? Flight ispaid for so I am more or less stucked. Help!

I'm not seeing anything with a continuous stay for cheaper than about 45000 yen per night. For example, the Hotel Rasso has a great location and basically the cheapest price left available.

http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/HOTEL/844/844.html

Alternatively, consider staying for the festival for only one or two nights (you don't really need more) and then spending one or two nights somewhere else in Hokkaido. I'd visit Niseko if you are into skiing, but there are other ski or hot spring resorts too.

Yeah it's the consecutive days that will be hard to find stuff for, and the weekend will be even more expensive than the weekdays.

Suggestions for other places to stay: Otaru, Asahikawa, Lake Shikotsu all have their snow festivals on at the same time, Tomakomai has a skate festival on the weekend of the 7th and 8th. You could also go to Jozankei or Noboribetsu if you're into onsens.