Hundreds of thousands of aviation fans and more than 10,000 aircraft descend on Oshkosh each summer for EAA AirVenture, turning every hotel room and RV pad within miles of Wittman Regional Airport into premium real estate. When the on-site lots max out, the overflow rolls straight into Sleepy Hollow Farm Campground, a half-mile away and now in its 25th season of AirVenture duty.
“We are the biggest private campground in Winnebago County and closest to EAA. This is our 25th year,” owner Jeff Bartels said during an NBC 26 interview.
For fellow park owners, the story matters because Sleepy Hollow secures an estimated 90 percent repeat rate during the fly-in. “It’s really a reunion, a homecoming, because a lot of the people who stay with us have been with us for 20 plus years,” Bartels said. “We have about a 90% return rate.”
That loyalty is forged partly by scarcity. “The first day of the convention is when we start to take the list for next year,” Bartels said, and the phones light up almost immediately.
The campground, at 1679 W. Waukau Ave., offers more than 200 wooded sites divided among standard tent pads, electric-and-water tent spots, back-in or pull-thru RV pads, full-service waterfront slips, and three cabin styles.
Guests coming off a long day on the flight line find a new swimming pond with WIBIT inflatables, two tiled shower houses, a pavilion, a weekend bar, laundry, a camp store, free Wi-Fi hotspots and a golf-cart shuttle to the show gates, according to the park’s website.
Operators looking to copy the playbook might start by formalizing an event partnership months in advance, holding blocks of sites exclusively for attendees, layering upsells such as early-arrival staging pads and coordinating a co-branded shuttle loop. Sleepy Hollow does all three, even keeping a flex field in reserve for last-minute RVs.
Pricing reflects that cadence. Current online rates list a tent site with electric and water at $44 nightly or $250 weekly, while a waterfront, full-service RV pad reaches $89 per night, $534 per week or $1,300 per month, with a 1 p.m. check-in and noon checkout, per the campground’s online rates. Dynamic pricing that escalates as inventory tightens but rewards longer stays helps smooth revenue spikes.
Scaling up for the surge means cross-training seasonal staff, renting portable restrooms and pushing real-time text alerts about shuttle departures or impending storms. Converting interior roads to one-way loops, enforcing quiet hours and scheduling rapid turf recovery allow a property to reset within 72 hours of the final flyover.
Sleepy Hollow’s modern shower houses and extra laundry stations illustrate how added capacity can shorten queues and keep repeat guests happy—critical when those campers may already be booked for next year before this year’s airshow even ends.
“Sleepy Hollow is the best kept secret of AirVenture. Private showers, laundry, golf cart service to the gate, super nice folks,” camper Tom Meeks wrote on the campground’s website.
William Kroeger, another repeat guest, praised the shaded full-service sites and on-site bar, adding on the website that the atmosphere is “a lot quieter” and the staff is friendly.
Many visitors compare the shaded, tiled-shower experience with the far larger Camp Scholler run by EAA. While Scholler offers camaraderie and proximity, Sleepy Hollow’s trees, private restrooms and quick golf-cart rides draw those willing to trade spectacle for sleep.
Looking ahead, phone reservations for AirVenture week are required at 920-509-0032, while other dates can be booked online through the park’s website. The 2026 wait list will open on the first morning of the 2025 convention and traditionally fills within days.
For park operators elsewhere, three lessons stand out: formalize partnerships with mega-events well before the crowds arrive; layer tiered upsells and dynamic pricing to capture peak-season value; and invest in modern restrooms, shade and on-site shuttles that set a property apart from mass-camping alternatives.