2023 RV Show Season

Jagiven · 01-17-2023, 08:54 AM

Our local RV show season has begun! Over the weekend went to one in downtown St. Paul. Not huge, but the River Center was packed both with campers and people. There was 4 independent dealerships, no Jayco's. DW is very interested in 5vers and likes the rear open living room configurations.

Not to many 5vers at the show. DW found two rigs she liked (1 5ver and 1 TT), and I found one. Show prices were listed around 34-36% off MSPR on the rigs we were most interested in. Our local Jayco Dealer's everyday prices on TT's and 5vers per their website look to be close to 35% off. I noticed a few around 39% off.

The big show, at the beginning of February was taken over by Camping World (all camping world dealerships only). We plan to visit the show, but no plans to purchase from them.

What are you seeing?

jetlag · 01-17-2023, 09:06 AM

We will be at the Tampa RV show tomorrow and Thursday

muckinfuss · 01-17-2023, 10:23 AM

Cleveland was 1/5-1/8. Only Sat. had any real attendance compared to pre-covid shows. No numbers have been shared yet (not a good sign). 2019 had 50k paid attendees. No show in 20 or 21 so no numbers for then.

TWP723 · 01-17-2023, 01:09 PM

Our big show is in February. Boat show is this weekend. Figure that out...

**JFlightRisk** · 01-17-2023, 08:30 PM

The larges central NY show isn't until March 1st. Strangely, it used to run from Thursday to Sunday. This year it'll be Wednesday to Saturday. Not a huge show, but the biggest for around here, five buildings at the New York State Fairgrounds. Always a fun way to kill a day and get a supply of cheese filled pepperoni and pickles at the vendor section. Yum!

**Midnightmoon** · 01-17-2023, 08:40 PM

I completely missed ours here. It ran from the 7th-15th of January. It's probably a good thing. I don't need any temptations.

Cincinnati Kid · 01-17-2023, 09:31 PM

We just made reservations for the Hershey show in Sept. This will be our first time there.

Jerry713 · 01-18-2023, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWP723

Our big show is in February. Boat show is this weekend. Figure that out...

In general I think fishing "season" typically starts before camping season for many. Not for us. Yesterday it was 82 here we fish and camp 12 months a year.

Marcm157 · 01-18-2023, 12:36 PM

We have a decent sized show coming up in February - We actually bought our current trailer at the same show last year. Not a great buying experience but it beat the previous 2 from Camping World by far!!!

bucko · 01-19-2023, 04:15 AM

Does Camping World see these responses? Do they make any attempts to change their ways?

jetlag · 01-19-2023, 07:10 AM

Spent the day at the Tampa RV show yesterday, a learning experience to be sure. Every imaginable type of camper, big and small. The fine folks at Prevost were only showing by appointment, imagine that. My wife and friend quickly culled the campers based on their own criteria. They had to have a half bathroom along with the main one, perceived quality, and overall floor plan. Other than the fancy motor homes we went in to look at, and not interested in, over 99% of them were thrown out quickly, lol. I was thinking that maybe, and that was a big maybe, we might look at toy haulers to carry the golf cart and bikes with us. Quality wise, they only liked the Grand design units, but quickly found out that they are all, a compromise in the floor plans, so those ideas were shelved quickly. On the 5th wheel side, two made their cut. One was the Grand Design Solitude, and not nearly enough to replace ours, and the $200K and plus DR Suites. Those were very nice, built very well, and around 22-24K pounds heavy each, which means a new truck to haul them. They were fun to look at, but never seriously entertained owning one. And surprisingly enough, they liked a super C, by Newmar of course. I had to laugh, $379K retail, and they were offering a $99K discount from retail. There was a good crowd there, weather was great.

Swedeswan · 01-26-2023, 02:12 PM

Originally from Mpls/St Paul, we loved going to the big RV show in Mpls in February. It's too bad that Camping World has taken that one over.

bender88 · 01-27-2023, 10:44 AM

Nashville show was a waste of time unless you are in the market for a TT. Plenty of those at the show but only maybe a dozen 5ers.

**norty1** · 01-27-2023, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bucko

Does Camping World see these responses? Do they make any attempts to change their ways?

There is really no way to know the answer to either question!

Jagiven · 02-04-2023, 01:48 PM

Went to the Minneapolis "Ultimate RV Show" yesterday, host by Camping World. It was mostly disappointing. Very few people. It was a mix of new and used.

They seemed be very eager to try to sell. I did not pay attention to the prices. DW, said sale prices were about 20% off MSRP. Not very good compared to the St. Paul RV show last month. In an hour we had seen almost everything we were interested in. In two hours we had seen almost everything we were interested in three times. We looked mostly looked at 5vers.

We realized most rigs have very few to no light switches. Walk in the door, you have to go up the steps to get to the control panel, to turn on lights. Few rigs, we found zero light switches. Some we found one on the back wall for the living room, one in the bedroom and bathroom. On some, DW could not reach the control panel from the main deck, and it was reachable from the upper deck, but was so far over, she still had to reach over the steps to access it. Bad design. The sales people, were like you can control the lights from your phone! I'm like, I don't want to log into my phone to turn on/off the lights. I want to walk in and flip a switch. I was not impressed. FYI, there were no new Jayco on site.

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