The comments below are to continue the conversation…
My wife Pam and I have organized a Texas state Winnebago rally. This rally was Sange,r TX at what is now a McClain’s RV dealership. We had about 100 rigs from 5 states attend. I'm sure Nate McClain would love to have a Grand Design Rally there. The property has about 150 sites on it and a very large meeting room.
Here are some questions to ponder.
Would people travel to N Texas? Early October is the best time because of the weather. No matter where we have it, it will be a long ways for most people. The Grand Design manufacturing plant is always an option, but I don’t know if they have the space for all these rigs in a rally type environment. They would have to chime in on that.
How much would you be willing to pay for the event? If it’s nothing, we would need to stay at a state park or equivalent. If you want something more we will need to pony up.
As I said, our experience is with the WIT club "Winnebago Itasca Travelers" and this is what they did.
Rally is from Thurs evening to Sunday morning. They would charge approx. $125.00 per rig. This would include:
Thursday night included a potluck dinner, a brief welcome and details of the weekend events.
Friday, breakfast and dinner provided. After breakfast, an opening ceremony, welcome from a city official/local chamber and a brief announcement from the major sponsors’ in this case McClain’s and Grand Design, typically they would have rigs on premises for us to look at, and of course purchase. At this point people would enjoy the day, golfing, gambling (Winstar Casino is 30 miles up the road in OK) or just relaxing. Sometimes we would have seminars on hot topics, here Grand Design could have a technical person answer questions. Sky Med would usually have a presentation or we could have somebody come in and talk about RV insurance. Friday afternoon at 4:00 happy hour/gathering either as a group or at a few local rv’s depending on the mood of the crowd towards alcohol. Evening meal was catered and then skits were performed or games were played.
Saturday, breakfast and dinner provided. Saturday was a day of games (joker, washers, bean bag baseball, etc.) After Saturdays 4:00 gathering, there was another catered meal, awards and ribbons for the winners of the games and then paid entertainment (we didn’t charge enough money to get the greatest entertainment...be warned).
Sunday morning we had coffee and pastries, and then a short devotional by one of the members.
One thing you need to know is with 200 people in attendance we had committees to oversee each area i.e. games, seminars, food, entertainment etc. I’m not sure 1 or 2 couples could pull this off even with a smaller gathering.
We also had raffles and prizes (money hat and the wine and cheese basket were the favorites).
Here is our dilemma: In March of 2014 we start our dream and become full timers. Our plan is to spend 3 months in Alaska (June through Aug). We would not be able to help coordinate something like this until the fall of 2015 if you were interested.
