Fairs and rodeos draw two travelling crowds: the exhibitors, competitors and crews who come for the whole run, and the visitors who make a weekend of it. Both spend well beyond the gate.
Lines worth adding
- Advance gate and grandstand bundles sold online.
- Parking passes, including multi-day passes for exhibitors.
- Camping and RV sites for competitors and crews, reserved ahead.
- Exhibitor services: stall bedding, power, wash bays, sold with the entry.
- Lodging for visitors and exhibitors who do not camp, shown on the fair's own ticket and entry confirmations.
The lodging line
Competitors and exhibitors are among the most reliable lodging customers any event has: they come every year, they stay for days, and they ask the office where to sleep. Visitors from out of the area add weekend demand on top. With Bookend, a lodging panel on the fair's confirmations pays around 6–8% of each booking, across hotels, rentals and houses near the grounds.
Where to start
- Put gate, parking and camping on the same online checkout so the office stops taking these by phone.
- Add a lodging panel to the entry confirmation for competitors and exhibitors first — they are the most predictable demand.
- Extend it to visitor ticket confirmations once it is running.
- Keep a simple list of nearby places for the office to point to, backed by the same bookable page.
The fair office already fields the where-to-stay question every year. Turning that answer into a booking page does not add work; it removes the phone calls and pays the fair for the answer.