Is the motorhome show worth the money?

What does it cost to attend?

Hamilton’s 2026 prospectus puts Pavilion and marquee space at $123 per square metre plus GST, compared with $41 outside. Indoor bookings over $15,000 qualify for a 15% discount. Prime corner sites carry a 20% premium. [1]

A 20m × 20m indoor site therefore costs $41,820 after the discount, before any corner premium. Allow seven motorhomes on that site, with enough room for visitors to walk around, open doors and sit down with a salesperson.

For an Auckland dealer taking seven motorhomes to Hamilton, the following budget allows one staff member per vehicle, three nights’ accommodation and four days of meals. The site price comes from the prospectus; the other costs are working allowances. All amounts exclude recoverable GST.

The total will vary by dealership. Local staff may not need accommodation, a smaller team may be enough, and driving vehicles to the show replaces transport charges with fuel and staff time. Add any separate costs for cleaning, insurance, display hire or keeping the yard staffed.

Count costs once. Ordinary wages are already part of running the business; overtime and relief staff are extra. Reusable signage should be spread over the events where it is used. Show discounts belong in the sales margin, rather than being added again to the attendance bill.

How many sales pay for the show?

Divide the total cost of attending by the amount each sale contributes after the vehicle cost, discount and direct selling expenses. Round up to the next whole vehicle. This gives the number of additional sales needed to cover the show.

On the $56,560 budget, a dealer retaining $25,000 per motorhome needs three additional sales. Two leave the dealership $6,560 short. Three cover the event and leave $18,440 towards the rest of the business.

Caravans, new motorhomes and used motorhomes will produce different margins. The table shows how the answer changes; the amounts are examples, not industry margin benchmarks.

A dealer selling both motorhomes and caravans can use the combined return. Two motorhomes contributing $25,000 each and a caravan contributing $15,000 provide $65,000 towards the show bill.

Deciding what counts as a show sale is less straightforward. A prospective buyer may visit your dealership before the show, hold off buying until they have looked around the event, and sign either there or in the following weeks. Is that a show sale? Would they have bought from your dealership if the show had not been on? Did seeing the vehicle again, comparing it with competitors or getting the show price close the deal?

These are reasonable questions for the sales team to work through. Record where the enquiry started and what moved it towards a purchase. The show may have won a new customer, helped close an existing enquiry or simply changed the timing. Each has value, but they do not all represent the same return on the marketing spend.

What does that mean for your display?

Dealers can compare displays in four groups: 1–3, 4–6, 7–10 and 11 or more vehicles. Compare indoor sites with indoor sites and outdoor sites with outdoor sites. Total cost, cost per vehicle displayed and sales needed to break even are more useful than a cost per square metre on its own.

Seven motorhomes on 400m² allows about 57m² per vehicle. A typical 7.4m × 2.3m motorhome occupies about 17m², but a stand needs much more than parking space. Doors, access, people and meeting areas all take room. The shape of the site also matters: a long, narrow strip will not work as well as a square of the same area.

The worked budget is $8,080 per display vehicle. At $25,000 contribution per sale, the dealer needs three orders from a seven-vehicle display. Those orders may be for the display stock, vehicles back at the yard or future deliveries.

How many visitors are actually buying?

Hamilton’s prospectus reports more than 21,000 visitors at the 2025 show, with over 1,100 motorhomes and caravans attending. The Event Park & Stay is a substantial part of the weekend, bringing owners together as well as providing access to the show. [1][2]

That creates a good atmosphere and an audience interested in the lifestyle. It does not tell a dealer how many people are shopping for another vehicle. Some owners come to catch up with friends, browse accessories or plan their next trip. Others are ready to upgrade. Existing owners can be excellent prospects; the question is how many are in the market now.

Dealers need to think in buying households, not gate entries. A couple normally represents one potential purchase, and a visitor who returns on all three days remains one prospect. Motorhome buyers also need to be separated from caravan buyers.

If the motorhome dealers between them need 15–20 additional sales to cover their costs, that represents $2.7m–$3.6m of vehicle purchases at an average selling price of $180,000. Are there enough motorhome-buying households in the crowd to support that level of business, either over the weekend or in the following months?

That is a useful test of the audience, not an estimate of what the show will sell. The purchase value indicates the spending involved; the margin retained from those sales is what pays the dealers’ costs. The table below shows how many serious prospects would be needed at different conversion rates.

Our modelling illustrates the scale. Ten motorhome-only retailers would need 15 sales at a $25,000 contribution for each to cover their estimated site fees. Mixed motorhome and caravan dealers, transport, staffing and other attendance costs are excluded, so the full requirement is higher. [3]

There is also no guarantee that sales will be evenly shared. A show can generate enough business overall while some dealers still leave well short of their own target.

Look at the annual show budget

An Auckland dealer may attend both Covi and Hamilton. A South Island business may exhibit in Christchurch and at a local show such as Nelson. The costs will differ, but they all draw on the same annual marketing budget.

Two shows costing $40,000 each mean an $80,000 annual commitment. At $25,000 contribution per sale, four additional sales are needed to cover it. Assess each event as well as the annual result, and count a customer who visits both shows only once.

There is value beyond the sales sheet

Shows give dealers time with existing owners, put new models in front of the public and keep the business visible alongside competitors. For a new brand or a dealership entering a region, that exposure may be particularly valuable.

The issue is what the dealership is prepared to pay for it. If a $40,000 show produces $25,000 in additional sales contribution, the remaining $15,000 is the cost of the other benefits. Could an owner event, referral programme or targeted campaign deliver more for the same money?

Being absent also has a cost if potential buyers never discover the business. The decision should reflect the dealership’s position, customer base and ability to turn enquiries into sales.

An alternative: invest in the customers who buy from you

Consider a buyer programme announced at the start of the year. Every motorhome purchaser enters a monthly draw for $500 of diesel and remains eligible for 12 months. That costs $6,000 a year and gives the dealership a regular reason to stay in touch after delivery.

A second part could put $500 or $1,000 from every motorhome sold into an annual prize pool. Half goes to the first prize winner, with two further prizes of 25%. Each buyer receives one entry. Existing owners can earn another entry by referring someone who buys, even if their own purchase was several years earlier.

The annual draw could be held at an onsite sales open day, bringing owners and prospective buyers together. At 60 motorhome sales and $500 per vehicle, the annual prizes would be $15,000, $7,500 and $7,500. Including the diesel draws, the prize budget would be $36,000.

Against an $80,000 annual show budget, the $500 option at 60 sales leaves $44,000 for advertising, referral rewards, open days and running the programme—or to retain in the business. Rewards apply to all qualifying buyers, including those who would have purchased anyway, so the full programme cost belongs in the comparison.

This approach may strengthen customer relationships and referrals. It still needs promotion to reach people who do not know the dealership. A guaranteed reward for a successful referral is another option: would an owner respond more readily to that than to another entry in a draw?

The programme is worth testing. Its success should be judged on enquiries, referrals, completed sales and retained margin, alongside the cost of delivering it.

It does not have to be all or nothing

A dealer could retain both shows, keep the stronger event and redirect the rest of the budget, or replace show attendance with a year-round programme. Keeping one event provides a practical way to test the alternative without losing the show audience altogether.

Advertising around show dates could invite buyers to the dealership for appointments, a genuine show-period offer and the buyer programme. Lead with the vehicles, service and reasons to visit. Customers are more interested in what the dealership offers than a lengthy explanation of why it is not exhibiting.

Compare the full annual costs and results. Include advertising, follow-up, open days and rewards, as well as the time needed to run each approach.

Do sales lift around show time?

The monthly figures provide a useful starting point. The charts compare 2023, 2024 and 2025, with the Auckland, Christchurch and Hamilton show months marked. They separate new registrations recorded as private use, dealer-to-public transfers and public-to-dealer transfers. [4]

New private registrations rose from September to October in all three years: 40 to 67 in 2023, 49 to 66 in 2024 and 48 to 71 in 2025. The same clear pattern is not present around the March show. Spring buying and delivery schedules could explain part of the lift. The late-2025 figures also use a different source extract, so that comparison needs more care.

Dealer-to-public transfers show a mixed result. March was the busiest month of 2023, with 115 transfers. November led in 2024 and 2025, with 100 and 116 respectively. In 2025, transfers rose from 71 in August to 98 in September, fell to 76 in October and then rose to 116 in November. There is activity around show time, but no consistent immediate surge across all three years.

Public-to-dealer transfers reached 88 in September 2025, up from 55 in August. That could include trade-ins associated with vehicle purchases, but the category also includes vehicles dealers buy outright. The largest movement in the three-year series was January 2023, with 239 transfers—well outside the three marked show months.

The figures support a closer look at the spring sales period. They do not isolate the business generated by a show. Buyers may place orders well before delivery, and a registration or ownership transfer records a different point in the transaction from the day the deal was agreed.

A dealer’s own records can provide the missing link. Compare the show month and following months with previous years, then review the enquiries behind the sales. Which customers first found the dealership at the show? Which had already visited? What role did the vehicle display, a trade-in offer or show pricing play in the decision?

That is the test worth taking into the next booking round: how much business did the show help generate, what margin did the dealership retain, and could the same annual budget have worked harder elsewhere?