Our Visit to the 2018 Austin RV Expo
Video: The 2018 Austin RV Expo
Overview of the 2018 Austin RV Expo
The Austin RV Expo has been held annually since 2007. It is located in the Austin Convention Center in downtown Austin, Texas.
This year's show dates were Thursday, February 15 to Sunday, February 18, 2018. Ticket prices were $10 per adult, $6 for folks 60+ and $6 for children 7-12. Discount coupons were available from the show's website by joining their email list. Discount coupons could not be used on Saturday. The show also gave out several pairs of free tickets on their Facebook page.
This show is 100% indoors.
Austin RV Expo Parking
Parking is available at two nearby Convention Center Parking Garages. For 2018 parking was $20. Be prepared for a little bit of a walk from the parking garages to the convention center.
RV Dealers Who Participated in the 2018 Austin RV Expo
6 local Austin area RV dealers brought RVs to this year's show: Camper Clinic II, Crestview RV, ExploreUSA RV Supercenter, RV Outlet Mall, RV Land and Princess Craft RV.
We saw tent campers, pop-up campers, teardrops, truck campers, travel trailers, fifth wheels, some Class B and C motorhomes and a couple of Class A motorhomes.
Vendors at the Austin RV Expo
We love to find good RV accessory and campground representatives at RV shows! Some of the RV-related vendors at this year's show included Amazon Camperforce, Austin Canoe and Kayak, AAA Texas, Thousand Trails, KOA, Passport America, Woody's RV Rentals, Oak Forest RV Park, Pecan Park Riverside RV Park, Fleet Maintenance of Texas, Shoreline Boat and RV Repair, TXRVRent, Leisure Resort, and RV Service Academy.
Thank you to Leslie at Curl's RV Rental, "The Texas RV Professor" Cooper at the Mobile RV Academy, Kelli at Street Dog Digs and Sean from Texas Star International for participating in our video! Also referenced in our conversation with Cooper in our video: the National RV Inspectors Association and The RV Daily Report.
Seminars at the 2018 Austin RV Expo
This year's Expo featured between four and six seminars each day. Topics ranged from volunteering while traveling to RV electrical to full-time RVing to tips on propane, towing, RV air conditioner maintenance and RV kitchens. In 2018 the seminars were held in the vendor room and had plenty of seating. We were really impressed by the seminar schedule at this year's Austin RV Expo and wish more RV shows would provide this amount of space and topic variety in their seminars.
Tips For Your Next Visit to the Austin RV Expo
Double check your GPS! If you are not familiar with downtown Austin and the location of the Convention Center, we suggest using the Center's physical address to find it's location rather than the name "Austin Convention Center". Google Maps decided to take us on a round about tour of downtown Austin to find the Convention Center. When we canceled those directions and entered the street address, it took us directly to it.
Austin's infrastructure is in the midst of a massive boom and it seems like road construction is everywhere! Plan plenty of time to get to the show and find parking.
It seemed to us that parking might be limited, so we suggest getting to the show as early as you can.
Concessions are available inside the Convention Center and included pizza, muffins, danishes, sandwiches, salads, coffees, teas, juice, soft drinks and water. To give you an idea of prices, in 2018 a sandwich cost $8.25 and water was $4.25. There were a few areas to eat with tables and chairs in the concession area, and a lot of chairs where they held the seminars.
We saw a few Class B and Class C motorhomes, and a couple of Class As (1 diesel pusher if I remember correctly). So if you are looking only at motorized RVs and want to see a lot of motorhomes, this show may be disappointing to you. However, there were a lot of towable RVs to tour. We saw a good selection of travel trailers and fifth wheels and several truck campers as well. This show had some of the most unique towable RVs that we have seen at any of the shows we have attended recently.