Large events happening near you can be a gold mine for renting out your RV to other folks. Events like NASCAR races, large concerts, and major festivals see an influx of out-of-towners who all need places to hang their hats.
Because these events generally happen in locations without sufficient hotel beds, they can be fertile ground for you to promote your RV rental at a premium price.
That’s why we want to provide you with the tips and tools needed to make the most out of events happening near you. Read on to see the best ways to discover these events, promote your RV to attendees, provide the amenities that folks want, and more.
Why Events Matter To Your RV Rental Business
Large-scale events like NASCAR races and concert festivals like Country Thunder see large groups of people gathering around shared interests. This means several things for you:
- Shared interests = common language — When it comes to marketing your RV, it helps if you know exactly who you’re speaking to. If you know that thousands of people are coming into your area for a NASCAR race, that means you can more easily create focused marketing language that’ll help get your rig rented out.
- Surging demand = higher prices — People plan on attending these events years in advance. For some, the event might even be a one-time bucket list item. That — combined with the increased demand that comes with large events — usually means you’ll be able to command a higher-than-usual nightly rate for your rental.
- Large events = pop-up RV parks — The Sturgis Bike Rally, for example, sees hundreds of thousands of people descend on a town of just 7,000. This means that the surrounding fields host swarms of RVers who turn the whole area into one large camper city.
By keeping an eye out for events like Sturgis near you, you’ll be ready to provide the rig(s) needed when the crowds come. - Events = fun people (usually) — Event-goers can be some of the most fun renters to rent to if you do your homework. Get to know prospective renters in advance to make sure they won’t turn your rig into a party pad. As long as that checks out, events provide an avenue to rent to some of the coolest people on the planet.
Examples Of Popular Events For RV Rentals
- Large car races — NASCAR races happen all around the country and offer a special chance to rent out your RV. Virtually every race track offers RV sites to attendees that open well in advance of the race itself. Race fans arrive early and stay late to experience the celebration and events that can run for up to a week before/after race day.
Other car races like the IndyCar Series, IMSA Racing, and NHRA Drag Racing offer special chances for you to rent out your RV. - College football games — Most RV owners will have a large college or university near them that’ll have a few big games per season. Keep an eye out for these events that see large crowds of people coming in early and staying late to take it all in. Be sure to market to the tailgating crowd by showing them how your rig is ready to camp out and grill out.
- Music events — Music events like Bonnaroo, Coachella, Country Thunder, and much much more are treasure chests when they come near you. The key is to carefully vet your renters to be sure they take good care of your rig.
- Festivals — Do you have a Renaissance Fair, large food festival, art festival, or other celebration that regularly happens near you? In addition to attendees needing places to stay, these events also bring large teams of staff that may be looking for RV rentals.
- Motorcycle rallies — Sturgis may be the most well-known, but others like Daytona Bike Week are worthy contenders. If a large rally comes your way, it’ll be a worthwhile event to target.
How To Prep Your RV For Large Events
The first step to getting your RV ready to rent out for large events is to have a process to avoid party animals in your rig. This means you’ll do a bit more front-end work at getting to know prospective renters than you might otherwise.
By asking questions to your renter(s) about their plans, the number of people in their group, and supplies they might need, you can do some polite detective work to sniff out anything you might not want happening in your camper.
This is also a great time to review your Rules Of The Road for your Outdoorsy listings to ensure you specifically prohibit things like parties and smoking in your rig.
Once that hard stuff is out of the way, have fun by making sure your rig has everything your guests would need to have a great time at their event.
Hosting folks with kids at a NASCAR race? You could put a few toy race cars in your rig to surprise and delight your guests.
Entertaining concertgoers? You could get some inexpensive posters of bands in the lineup and hang them around your RV.
Hosting guests for a hot outdoor festival? Stock your rig with a bag of ice and ample water supplies.
By getting to know a bit about the event your renters are going to and adding a few wow amenities in your rig, you’ll set yourself up as the event host with the most.
Supplies To Provide For Large Event Rentals
Along with unique amenities like those above, there are standard supplies you should consider providing for any event rental. Here are some examples:
- Grill
- Extra chairs
- S’more supplies
- Firewood
- Lighters
- Welcome basket
- Recyclable cutlery, cups, and plates/bowls
- Generator (with an add-on fee)
- Towels
- Soaps
- Foldable outdoor table
How To Promote Your RV For Large Events
Just because folks are coming to your area for an event doesn’t mean they’ll automatically rent your RV — you have to be proactive to make your rig stand out as a great choice. Here are a few ways to do that:
- Offer a discount code specific to the event — We make it super easy to create discount codes right from your Outdoorsy dashboard. Check out this article for step-by-step directions.
You can customize the code for each event to be something relevant to the event-goer (e.g. ‘Sturgis2023’, ‘CountryThunder’, etc.) - Seasonal discounts — We also make it very easy for you to offer adjusted rental rates during particular seasons. You could set your nightly rates higher during concert season or set them lower during another event season if you feel it would make you more competitive.
- Add listing photos related to the event — Pictures showing your rig in action at an event like a car race, music festival, or other large gatherings will help draw in renters looking to take your rig to similar events.
- Modify your listing name to show up in search — As an example, this rig near the Indy 500 could temporarily change its listing title in spring to something like ‘2015 Forest River Sunseeker Near The Indy 500’. This change would help their RV stand above the pack when folks are searching for rentals near the track.
- Modify your listing description to show up in search — Similar to the above, you could strategically pepper the event name into your listing description. Here’s an example:
“This Forest River Sunseeker has everything you and your crew will need to enjoy the Indy 500. We offer delivery directly for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway so you can arrive and start enjoying right away!”
Ways To Market Your RV To Event-Goers
These are a few of the ways you can get the word out about your RV when an event comes your way —
Facebook is a great tool because you can post something to your wall with keywords that event-goers would be searching for. You could also search for Facebook groups and pages related to the event as an avenue to share about your rental. Be sure to ask the page/group moderator about their rules before you share your listing on their page or with their group.
Instagram is another great platform to share your rig for rent. Seek out hashtags related to the specific event and be sure to include those hashtags when you share a photo of your rig in action. You can even temporarily put a link in your Instagram bio that leads people directly to your Outdoorsy booking page — just be sure to add a sentence like ‘link in bio’ to the photo you share that advertises your rental.
Craigslist is another platform that is frequently used when people are searching for RVs near an event they’re going to. You could even copy/paste your listing title, description, and photos from Outdoorsy to Craigslist. Be sure to include a link to your Outdoorsy booking page so Criagslisters can book with you securely.
Using a free QR code generator like this one, you could create a QR code that leads directly to your Outdoorsy listing. You could turn that QR code into a decal that you stick on your rig with a phrase like ‘Rent Me’. Your rig will then become a rolling billboard that will be seen by many people at the event.
Large events can be a great source of renters for your RV rental business whether you have one RV or one hundred. By knowing when events are in town, how to connect with them, and what to offer attendees, you’ll be well poised to sync up with a fun new customer base.
Have an RV you want to rent out for an event near you? You can list your RV with Outdoorsy here.
