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MC Fireside Chats – July 9th, 2025

Episode Summary

In the July 9th, 2025 episode of MC Fireside Chats, hosted by Brian Searl and sponsored by Horizon Outdoor Hospitality, a diverse panel of guests discussed key trends and challenges in the outdoor hospitality industry. The recurring guests included Zach Stoltenberg from LJA and Casey Cochran from Campspot, joined by special guests Natalie Binder from Camp V and Josh Hansen and Rebecca Lindblom from Big Rock Creek. The discussion opened with introductions, where Casey Cochran highlighted Campspot’s role as an online reservation and property management system, emphasizing their marketplace for campers. Zach Stoltenberg, an architect, explained LJA Engineering’s work in designing and funding glamping and outdoor hospitality projects, noting he was joining from his cabin in Colorado with a view of Pikes Peak. Natalie Binder then introduced Camp V, a boutique glamping hotel in a restored historic mining town in Colorado, offering a mix of accommodations and an arts nonprofit for events. Josh Hansen described Big Rock Creek, a large glampground and event venue in Wisconsin, detailing their diverse glamping and camping options, alongside a barn for weddings and large events. Rebecca Lindblom, Josh’s sister, also from Big Rock Creek, later joined the conversation, elaborating on their successful Christmas Light Festival. A significant portion of the chat focused on the holiday weekend performance and revenue management. Casey Cochran reported that many campgrounds achieved 100% occupancy over the Fourth of July, highlighting Campspot’s efforts to automate revenue management by analyzing market and historical data. Brian Searl added that even with fewer camper nights, effective Average Daily Rate (ADR) management could still lead to increased revenue, potentially reducing guest issues. The conversation then shifted to disaster preparedness and emergency response, prompted by Zach Stoltenberg’s discussion of recent flooding in Texas that impacted summer camps and RV parks. He underscored the critical importance of having and practicing a disaster plan, citing a camp that avoided casualties due to robust planning. Natalie Binder shared her own harrowing experience with an electrical fire at Camp V, emphasizing that while they had plans, the actual employee reaction during an emergency is unpredictable and highlighted the need for more psychological and trauma-informed training. She also mentioned their strategy of bringing in trusted “outside contractors” for emergency coverage. Zach Stoltenberg suggested drawing lessons from amusement parks and cruise ships that conduct regular, unannounced drills. Josh Hansen acknowledged the difficulty of consistent training due to seasonal staff turnover. When asked about technological solutions, Casey Cochran noted Campspot’s dashboards could identify occupied sites, and while text messaging is useful, legal opt-in requirements limit its immediate impact in emergencies. Zach Stoltenberg also mentioned integrated hardware systems like Point Central that can automate alerts and controls within units. Ultimately, the consensus was that operators should at least start with a basic plan and rehearse it with their staff. The discussion transitioned to diversifying revenue and event-based marketing. Josh Hansen shared Big Rock Creek’s pivot to camping and glamping during COVID-19, accelerating their event business. Rebecca Lindblom highlighted their hugely successful Miracle at Big Rock Christmas Light Festival, which draws tens of thousands of visitors and effectively generates winter revenue while promoting summer offerings. She advised other operators to focus on efficient resourcing and creating social media-shareable photo opportunities. Natalie Binder revealed that Camp V’s Planet V Fest music festival also grew organically from guest enthusiasm and serves as a powerful marketing tool. She also shared how a $2 million state grant helped them build a new event pavilion. Natalie emphasized that for remote destinations like Camp V, relationship marketing and outbound efforts to attract specific groups are crucial, leveraging the property’s unique assets like dark skies. Both Josh Hansen and Natalie Binder agreed on the unpredictable but valuable nature of influencer marketing. Zach Stoltenberg observed that both Big Rock Creek and Camp V exemplify a business model where experiences and events are primary, with accommodations serving as a secondary component. This approach, he noted, naturally leads to higher revenues and creates lifelong customers. Rebecca Lindblom enthusiastically agreed, stating that event attendees often become repeat guests for all their offerings. Brian Searl concluded that prioritizing the experience generally works more in an operator’s favor. Zach Stoltenberg further distinguished the marketing channels for events (targeting HR directors, wedding planners) versus individual accommodation bookings. Natalie Binder reiterated that their success largely comes from grassroots, word-of-mouth, and direct relationship-building. In closing, Brian Searl thanked the guests. Natalie Binder encouraged visits to campv.com. Josh Hansen directed listeners to bigrockcreekwi.com and miracleatbigrock.com, adding a final thought that early-week glamping or camping can be just as enjoyable as weekends. Rebecca Lindblom also expressed appreciation for the discussion. Zach Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of relationships as a wise business strategy, where trust and connection naturally lead to strong business. Brian Searl then promoted his upcoming podcast, “The Campground of the Future,” before concluding the episode.

Recurring Guests

Casey Cochran
Vice President of Business Development
Campspot
Zach Stoltenberg
Associate Principal of Architecture
LJA

Special Guests

Natalie Binder
Co-Founder
Camp V
Becky Lindblom
Co-Owners
Big Rock Creek
An image of a person in a circle, featured in an episode.
Josh Hansen
Co-Owners
Big Rock Creek

Episode Transcript

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats here with you for another episode sponsor by Horizon Outdoor Hospitality. A great company of park management and accounting and all the things they launched a company of services. Scott Foos is normally on the show to join us. To have a couple of recurring guests here, Zach Stoltenberg and Casey Cochran from Campspot joining us and we have a couple special guests today. So let’s go around the room and just introduce ourselves. Casey, you wanna go first? Campspot? 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, I can jump first. Yeah. Casey Cochran over at Campspot, reservation system online PMS system to help campgrounds run their business. We have a marketplace as well for the consumer side to help campers and guests find their campground. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Casey. Zach? 

Zach Stoltenberg: Zach Stoltenberg. I am an architect with LJA Engineering and we help people design, build, permit and title and fund glamping in outdoor hospitality projects. So we work closely with owners and developers and independent operators who want to build and start something new and exciting in the outdoor hospitality space.

Brian Searl: Did you design where you’re sitting right now, or? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’m actually staying at our cabin out in Colorado. My wife’s family has a, an awesome cabin out here and if I look right over there, you can just see the summit of the Pikes Peak out there. So 

Brian Searl: I’ve been up there like a couple times, but I gotta say the view is wonderful out there. It is, but like coming from Calgary down to there, it’s not with the lakes. And so I’m like, yeah, this is a nice view but Banff. So I was a little spoiled when I came down there, but it is a beautiful place. I’ll be in your situation next week. I’m going to my parents’, my girlfriend’s parents’ cabin in lake Shuswap in BC so I’ll be show next week. All right.

Casey Cochran: Brian, I interrupt you. Sorry to interrupt you. I think, I don’t know if your microphone’s on. I hear Zachary really well. You sound like you’re in a far distant cave or something like that, so I don’t know if it’s your mic isn’t on or what, but just wanted to give you the heads up on that.

Brian Searl: Thank you. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, we’re getting some, a bit of a feedback loop too. Anybody that talks, I’m hearing ’em twice. 

Brian Searl: Okay. There’s usually somebody who joins, but we’ll try to troubleshoot that in a second. But go ahead. We’ll go around the room. Who would like to start, Natalie, Josh or Rebecca?

Natalie Binder: Oh, sorry. Did you say my name? It’s hard to hear. 

Brian Searl: Sorry. Yeah, I’ll fix my mic, but whoever wants to start first. Go ahead. 

Natalie Binder: Thank you. Natalie Binder here. I’m the co-founder of Camp V. We’re a boutique glamping hotel located in between Telluride and Moab outside of a town called Nararita. And it’s a historic mining town that was built in 1942 and we restored it.

It’s over 120 acres with cabins, glamping tents, RV spaces, primitive camping, and then an arts nonprofit where we also were able to host events, retreats, weddings, and various and a music festival. 

Brian Searl: Welcome, Natalie. Is my mic better now? 

Natalie Binder: Yes. That’s great.

Brian Searl: Yeah. All right. It was the wrong one. I had to reboot my computer and I forgot to change it in the restream setting. Okay. Who’s next? Josh? 

Josh Hansen: Yeah, sure. My view fake, by the way I can’t, take any credit for that one.

Brian Searl: We never would’ve known, man. You could have just kept it silent. 

Josh Hansen: Josh Hansen, Big Rock Creek. We are a glampground, campground, event venue in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, about 45 minutes to an hour from Minneapolis St. Paul area, just across the border in Wisconsin, the St. Croix River Valley 980 acre property. We’ve got 13 different glampsites, seasonal Camping coming next year.

40 different camp sites right now between RV, tent, and primitive and continuing to add on and a large event barn on site where we do weddings and host our own events like our Miracle at Big Rock Christmas Light Festival. 

Brian Searl: Nice. Welcome. I’m excited to learn more about your property. Rebecca, last but not least. Oh, maybe we lost Rebecca. 

Josh Hansen: Becky’s my sister actually. She’s with Big Rock Creek too. Back your camera’s now. Great. 

Brian Searl: All right. We got two here. Then we got a fallback. So sometimes Josh will work, sometimes Rebecca work. It’ll work perfectly fine. I should do that. How come we don’t all have clones and if my mic doesn’t work, somebody else can just speak up for me. Casey, you wanna be my clone? We don’t really look alike. 

Casey Cochran: Yeah. Yeah, we can figure it out. We’ll give it a go. 

Brian Searl: Alright. So to our recurring guests here, what we ask the same question every week, is there anything that came across your desk, Zach or Casey, that you feel like is important for us to discuss or share?

I know we probably wanna briefly touch on the holiday weekend and see how it was for people, but is there anything else that came across you guys’ desk that you. Feel like we should talk about? 

Casey Cochran: No, in our world right now, obviously it’s may, middle of the season, we had, it was a really good 4th of July. For the most part, for a lot of campgrounds, they were wildly full with many reporting that they were at a hundred percent occupancy, which is awesome, right? So when you’re getting that it just feels good to know that, on those holiday weekends that, for a lot of parks, they were completely, maxed out which was awesome.

Our big focus right now is really on. Revenue management and helping automate a lot of that process within the software. So right now we’re in head down, data mode development mode and building a module that’s gonna help park owners and operators, understand all the data, to be able to price accordingly based on what the market is saying and what their historical, current and future pacing data is showing.

So that’s what’s in our world right now. But other than that, yeah we’re excited. We saw a really good June. June year over year for same park was fairly flat with ADRs going up. And so that’s a good thing. It means parks are typically making more money in those months.

And we’re tracking pacing for a really good July. In our world, what we care about is how many people are Camping and hopefully a lot of them are. And when they are we’re happy. And our partners are happy. 

Brian Searl: Do we care how many people are camping as long as they’re paying more than last year? I’m not sure which way that would go. Because camper nights are down for some of our clients. But again, like to your point, if they’re managing their ADR right, in a pretty good position, which is, it’s okay. That’s one less problem child that might leave a bad review on Google and we’re still making the same amount of money or more.

Casey Cochran: Exactly. Yep. Exactly.

Brian Searl: I don’t think an owner would ever say that out loud, but I said it out loud. So Zach, anything that came across your desk? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I think one interesting thing just following national news, national trends, I think everyone’s probably very aware of the flooding, the disasters that hit Texas last week.

And there were several summer camps that were impacted. There were several RV parks, campgrounds that, were right along that river in that direct path. Now that we’re on the backside of it and they’re looking at everything assessing what happened, how did it happen? What could have been done different or better? Or was there nothing that could have been done differently? We’re starting to see a little bit more data come out. We’re starting to get the whole picture. And I think it’s very interesting. I read accounts from two of these different summer camps.

The one that I think’s been very widely publicized throughout the media. The Camp Mystic where they lost I think 28 campers and staff in that flood, and less than two miles down the road is an identical, kind of kids summer camp that didn’t lose a single camper. And I think the one difference in there was the one camp had a really well established disaster plan.

They practice it every week when the new campers arrive, they’re trained, they’re taught, here’s what we do in extreme weather cases, notifications went out communication went out, leadership and, they followed their plan and the camp was still impacted, but everyone was safe.

I was listening to a video from a manager of one of the RV parks that was pretty much wiped out and they said, they got the weather service warnings at like midnight or 1:00 AM something, early morning hours. They activated their text messaging system to notify all of their guests, their managers on site started. Making the rounds, knocking on doors, waking people up, telling everybody to get out.

Brian Searl: Yep.

Zach Stoltenberg: There were RVs that were lost. There was personal belongings that were impacted, but all of their guests were able to get out in time. All the pets got evacuated, even. And I think, right now it’s a trending topic ’cause it’s international news and, media loves a good disaster.

But I think it’s maybe a valuable talking point or something to discuss the importance of having a plan and how you communicate that to your guests, how you manage it. A plan that you have that you don’t follow or you don’t ever activate is no good. Or that nobody’s trained or nobody’s familiar on.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: In our world of outdoor hospitality and glamping when events like this happen, I think it’s a good time to gut check and everybody to look at what they’re doing, look at their operations and say, we got lucky we haven’t encountered something like that.

But what might happen here? And do we have a plan and does our staff know what that plan is and do we practice it? Are they trained on it? 

Brian Searl: Do we know, I haven’t heard any reports on this, but do we know that Camp Mystic didn’t have a plan? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I don’t know.

Brian Searl: Okay.

Zach Stoltenberg: I don’t know. I know, some of the accounts that were there was a basically, some of these cabins lift up and floated away with kids asleep in them. And that there was no warnings. It’s seven or eight inches of rain in like a 45 minute span. I’ve heard varying accounts anywhere from 18 to 25 foot wall of water coming down. And there was just no time. There was no time to react, so I think even with the plan sometimes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you escaped scot free.

Brian Searl: No. Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: But what the one account that I was referencing was, it was really, it was the other camp. They’re two miles away from Camp Mystic. And there was a lot of accounts, there was a lot of interviews with people that were at that camp. And then when they were giving their accounts, they said, yeah, like we talked about it.

We knew what we were supposed to do. Everybody did it. They still had damage. They still had people that were impacted, but nobody died. And I haven’t heard any of those accounts coming out of Camp Mystic. So maybe they had a plan. I don’t know. Maybe it was followed, maybe it wasn’t. But I know that the people who were okay and the areas that everybody did escape, that was one of the things they talked about was, we had a plan, we put it into action, we notified people, we followed it and that’s why everybody got out and was safe.

Brian Searl: Yeah, we’ve talked about this a little bit on, I think we did a show a couple weeks ago on Outwired, just about how you create different policies and procedures and handle emergency evacuations and understanding your situation of, where am I located? Am I in, I can’t remember what they call it.

Was it Death, flood Valley or something like that. Is that whole area, right? Flash flood, something ’cause of the history of that there. But are you in an area where you’re. Not just low lying, but are you near, tornadoes? Are you near rivers? Are you near places where there are hurricanes in Florida and just beings cognizant of the possibilities. Fires, yeah, especially I should have known that I’m sitting up here right in BC, in Alberta.

Natalie Binder: Yeah, we actually had a fire a year ago. And so this is obviously very near and dear to us. I don’t wish this upon anyone, but it was the night of July 3rd. It was a really warm day. It was an electrical fire that happened in our only last historic cabin.

So it had this really old wiring and, luckily we were just getting ready to go to bed and we were like, wait, someone’s having a bonfire? And then we were like, wait, actually it’s on fire. And it was our headquarters, our office, so it had all of our supplies. It had propane up against it. There were vehicles up against it.

And even though we talk about having some of these plans in place, what I really learned that evening is that, how do your employees actually react in these circumstances.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Natalie Binder: Luckily my partner and I were there who I think were able to really manage and get gasoline removed and get gas woken up and, of course we were sold out.

However, I saw the reaction of some of our employees and it was somewhat I guess alarming in that not everyone’s meant to deal with these emergency situations, right? Like some of them really, it was traumatic and they really, psychologically what sort of happens to them and what happens to them afterwards.

And anyway it’s not something I wish upon anyone but having just experienced it, I can tell you man, so important to probably do more training and really get into more of the psychology of it and stuff, because no one knows how they’re gonna react in those emergency situations. 

Brian Searl: No, for sure. Where are you located? I’m sorry if I’m missed when I was walking away.

Natalie Binder: Yeah. In Colorado. So in between Telluride and Moab, Utah. So kind of high desert, about 5,000 feet. But we have all these really mature trees that are located right up against, all of these cabins.

Luckily we didn’t have any wind that evening. And so we only lost that one cabin. But again, we had fire extinguishers, we were able to get those activated. We had to fight the fire for the first 30 minutes because our rural fire department took 30 minutes to show up. I lean on a lot of our burning man experience, like with radical self-reliance, which is one of the principles.

And again, luckily my partner and I were there. However, you can have so many plans in place, but not knowing how your employees were also gonna react in that situation, I think is something that we as operators have to, really tap into. 

Brian Searl: Do you think there’s a way to figure that out beforehand? And here’s why it resonates with me and why I think, ’cause I don’t think it’s a Campground issue. I don’t think it’s a employees who work at Campground issue. Like my girlfriend and I were talking about this the other day. She’s a respiratory therapist in a hospital and she was saying, I’m going around I’m training these new people and we can teach them all the things and we can show them the book and we can say, here’s what you should do in this situation. But then when somebody’s dying in front of you.

Natalie Binder: Yeah.

Brian Searl: And you could take 18 different paths to try to save their life. Some of them will just freeze up and they won’t know what to do. And then I have to step in and like obviously, save the life or can’t save the life or whatever. But there are just certain people who are capable of that. Is there a way to discern that in advance? 

Natalie Binder: Yeah, I think it’s a really interesting question. I think that we probably don’t put enough emphasis on kind of trauma response, right? I certainly think that there’s, I’m not an expert in it, but I think that there’s experts that could come in and okay, take the deep breath, right? Calm down, slow down. Because time seems to be moving in this alternate universe while it’s happening, right? I called 911 like four times, and I realized it had only been like three minutes in between, and I thought it was like 20 minutes. However, we were pretty calm.

Not all of our employees were. So I think that there’s resources that we could look into to coming in and doing some of that training, and then I think that you might be able to determine who would be the lead on that. And depending on who you have scheduled or whatnot, I think having a plan in place of who’s gonna take the lead and who’s gonna be the leader and who’s gonna know when certain employees need to take a time out, like right in the middle of the fire, there was a certain point where I was like, okay, go take a break. Go sit down, go get some water. Like it, it’s okay. We got this. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think

Brian Searl: There are systems, go ahead Zach, please. 

Zach Stoltenberg: There’s some examples that I would serve as a framework at least, I think in hospitality, especially like an amusement park or a water park, right? They run drills pretty regularly where, they’ll put out to the radio and nobody knows that it’s a drill, right?

That they might tell their employees on Monday, Hey, sometime this week we’re gonna run a drill. But when that call comes through, from their training, everyone knows what their job is, what their role is and to the point of, some people aren’t cut out to handle that.

They get flustered, they freeze. So knowing some of those things, when you have an event what you need is the key staff members who you already know are competent, are trained for that. That’s their job, that’s their role. And they’re comfortable and they feel empowered to, but I think running drills, running simulations doing that regular training, most of those large operations, they, they do that on a very regular basis.

I’ve looked at like cruise ships where they’ll run a simulation on a lost child or something, and everybody on the staff knows what their job is. I’m a radio person, I’m a contact and any of that sort of thing. And the same with EMS and, more health related emergencies, right?

You don’t need everybody on your staff to be, to respond to something like that. But, maybe having one or two key staff members that do have emergency and first aid training and do know how to use a defibrillator and some of those things. Identify the personalities and the staff and the characteristics that are able to handle each one of those things. Get them the training and, run those tests those little simulations. 

Brian Searl: It has to be harder, I imagine and for the campground and glamping owners here with us, and if you guys wanna weigh in, or Casey, if you have data from camps, spot from all the parks you talked to. And I will ask you a question in a second about technology too, Casey, but just for the staff, I have to imagine that has to be harder, right?

One is running the year-round drills isn’t probably harder, but a lot of parks have a lot of turnover in staff seasonally, right? And so it’s not and I’m putting words into Camp Mystic, I don’t know, but I would assume like in Camp Mystic, the majority of their counselors come back year after year.

It would be in some ways easier for them versus work campers or having people who, obviously the ownership is the same, maybe the managers is the same. Is that enough or do they need more people? Or like, how does that get handled from a somebody who knows better than I do?

Natalie Binder: Yeah. 

Josh Hansen: I turnover piece of it. Sorry.

Natalie Binder: No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Josh Hansen: I think the turnover piece of it would be is a difficult piece of it. I think you have to, hopefully your leadership folks are people that stay in place for a long period of time so they can continue to retrain those that may come and go over the course of time.

Brian Searl: Go ahead, Natalie. Sorry. 

Natalie Binder: Yeah, no I absolutely agree and in our case compared to some of these, much bigger operations, I mean we’re a small boutique operation. It’s like everyone has to do everything right. We’re all rounders. And as much as my partner and I are, feel like we’re there 24/7. There’s times where we need to take a break and we need to take a vacation. And so I think after this, traumatic fire that we experienced we’ve really had to ensure that we’ve got that MOD shift covered with someone who is capable of handling those kinds of emergencies.

And sometimes we’re pulling in ’cause our MOD might be really good at guest services and it maintaining the property, but not good at that emergency response. And so we’ll call in some kind of let’s call them outside contractors, whether that’s like more friends and family that we know can deal with that skillset and we’ll say Hey, we’re gonna be gone for the next week.

We just need you to stay the night in case of an emergency. So we’re not having to do any training as it relates to like running the operation. We’ve obviously got down kind of those emergency protocols with them, but just knowing that we’ve got that coach or that leader. Staying the night is that MOD emergency contact.

And that’s how we’ve dealt with this as a really small operation because like I can’t afford to go out and necessarily hire someone who only does that or can only cover times when I need a break. So really you can look to your broader community. I’m lucky to have my mom nearby but just various people like that who are like community leaders who you also have a really close relationship with and you can say, Hey, I just need you to spend the night.

We’re gonna put you up in a nice cabin so that you can help in case we have an emergency. Because we understand the limitations of the staff who’s going to be there. And that’s just not their best skillset. 

Brian Searl: It’s one thing that, and I think I read about an RV park owner down there who drove 25 miles or something to his Campground, started knocking on doors in the middle of the night and got everybody out. I dunno if that’s the one you were talking about, Zach, but read an article about. 

Zach Stoltenberg: It may have been. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Obviously there’s no replacement for that, the boots on the ground, but Casey, are there ways that technology or software can make this more organized or more efficient or communicate through text message or just.

Casey Cochran: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna mention, obviously one of the main things, so there’s all these, even the text messaging, which obviously has a much higher open rate than, something like an email. And in a scenario like this, it’s for standard things where it’s, light things that are happening, yes.

Like a guest communication for text messaging works great. But even in that scenario, because of bylaws and things of that sort, you have to opt into receiving text messaging, right? Like it has to be something that you’ve bought into and that you’ve legally agreed to. And not everyone does that.

And so for these types of scenarios, I think, yeah, a text message and some sort of alert or something going out and technology can help from those. But with these, extreme scenarios and things of that sort, yeah, if you’re in one of these areas where things like tornadoes come through or things like water levels can rise to that extent.

Something like that as opposed to just a heavy rain where, site 34 and site 35 might be underwater. Let’s not drive through. There are just, two total scenarios where, how you execute on those need to happen. But yeah, I would say, if anything, like we still have, there’s probably 1500 out of the 3,200 campgrounds that we work with that don’t leverage tech. They don’t use text messaging.

And what we always suggest is just enable the text messaging. Even if you’re not gonna use it, just enable it so your guests can opt into it. So then if someday you ever do want to be able to text those guests and use it at some point, at least legally they’ve opted in and you can communicate with them that way, even if you’re choosing to not do it right now. Getting them opted in over time, in our opinion is relevant, just so you have that, the ability to do it.

Brian Searl: Is there anything that would help the staff though, within Campspot or anything that you guys have considered? And what I’m thinking of is, let’s say I’m a large resort and I have, I don’t know, 150 cabins, is there any way to quickly see which ones are occupied? So I don’t go knock on every door? ’cause I don’t remember as the owner, right? 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, certainly there’s dashboards and there’s reporting in terms of, by the site type that you’re looking at and which ones are occupied and which ones are vacant. Very quickly and very easily, you could leverage, a dashboard or a report that you print out and utilize that way in terms of what sites are occupied and which ones aren’t. How many guests, things like, are there pets, stuff like that is, very accessible from that standpoint. But yeah, I mean it’s a wild topic because, I think so many of us have been through scenarios where oh yeah, we just had a tornado, siren go off, a warning go off here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, not that long ago.

And I’m, like an idiot probably, like I’m sitting outside underneath my deck, like this is just another windstorm, right? You’re not expecting anything crazy to happen. And nothing did crazy happen, right? It was just, it was a lot of wind. There was some rain, and you went back inside and said, okay, that was a big false alarm.

But in other scenarios where something like that, the threat of something that catastrophic can happen, it’s just, yeah. It’s something you need to be prepared for. 

Brian Searl: You bring up a good point too, because we did, and I don’t know if you saw this Zach, but I saw some coverage where they were saying the officials from the city of Curville, I think, were saying like we were hesitant about sending out warnings, and I didn’t get the whole story about whether they actually did or didn’t or why they didn’t or didn’t.

But some of the articles are mentioning like we just didn’t wanna cry wolf. We didn’t wanna say it might flood and then every time you say it might flood and then it doesn’t flood, then more people ignore the tornado siren or ignore the flash flood warning. And I think like I’m of the opinion that like you just give the warning anyway. But I’m not saying they didn’t, I don’t know that for sure. But is that generally how.

Zach Stoltenberg: I think most of the accounts that I’ve read said that there were warnings even the day before. The potential for flooding the. 

Brian Searl: Rainfall could. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah. The projections that they gave were like 7 to 10 inches and they ended up being 12 to 18 inches. Even in that area, 7 to 10 inches is significant. So I think by most accounts that I’ve read, the National Weather Service was on it. They reported it. There was multiple warnings in the days and hours even leading up to it. It was one of those perfect storms, it maxed, everything was full, lots of work outside and engaged in activities and not paying.

And I think there were lots of warnings. Just not all the warnings were heated. And I think by the time the serious warnings came out, most people just did not have enough time to react. Yeah. The warnings came at, at 12:15, 12:30, and, everything was under 20 feet of water by 1 o’clock. So.

Brian Searl: Alright, well. 

Josh Hansen: Does anybody know, can a campground buy like a siren or a some kind of system where they alert their own campers through a. 

Brian Searl: They must be able to.

Zach Stoltenberg: So I do know, on the building side, on the architecture side, we’ve looked at several site management systems is similar to what you were talking about earlier with your management software and that. There’s several systems, the one that I’ve specked on a couple of resort development projects now is called Point Central. But it’s a hardware set that sits in your unit but it integrates with your property management system.

So it allows you to change like your keypads on your door locks. You can turn lights on and off. It can respond to, in this case like a fire alarm going off. And it communicates all these devices within a cabin or a tent back to your property management system. But it’s two-way communication.

So the same way, if there was a fire alarm going off in a tent, it’s gonna notify your property management system, it’s gonna go off audibly to notify the guest. And it could even be programmed to send a text message or a phone call to your site manager to let them know you have a fire alarm going off on cabin 21 or something like that.

But it also can go the opposite. So like from that property management system, you can send out a signal that would go to all of those base units in all of those different cabins or tents and you can turn lights on, you can adjust thermostats, you can sound an alarm. And so I think you know it doesn’t work. It’s not a perfect system. It just work on every site. It is cross compatible with a lot software. But I think technology and as this industry continues to advance with integrating some of those both active and passive technology solutions that make managing a site with multiple units a little bit easier and improves that communication, that feedback loop.

Brian Searl: Casey, are you looking for another integration? I know you don’t have a backup list of things people want you to build, but 

Casey Cochran: No, we’ve looked that to Point Central. It’s one that we’ve run across for us, integrations come down to need, right? How many of our customers have it or are willing to commit to that product.

We looked into it, we’ve looked into them quite a bit. There’s a bunch of different companies similar, and scope of work and things of that sort. I think the main thing is the communication system from a system like that 100% can get to the staff, right?

Like the main thing is the staff is aware and then what they do from there obviously is key. But yeah, it’s something that we’ve looked into and again, based on the adoption of, at least our customer base to that, those are always integrations that we’re looking to add.

Brian Searl: Yeah. It is hard though because like disasters can happen anywhere. A tornado can happen anywhere. A flood can happen. Maybe not a flood can happen anywhere, tornado, but you understand what I’m saying. They’re in kind of niche areas and so I imagine that’s even harder for a system like yours to get that kind of volume of demand that makes it move up the list.

Alright, let’s switch to something happier. Go ahead Zach.

Zach Stoltenberg: To wrap, found this out. I was gonna say, I do know that there are experts at doing this that, I couldn’t pretend to know what a particular site should need or do. And, every site’s different, every operation is different.

But I know that there are consultants that specialize in like doing disaster plans, natural disasters, all of that. Where they’ll come in, they’ll do an assessment of your property, your site, they’ll help you write that plan. They’ll do the training with your employees and help you get that in place.

And there’s a cost to do it. And oftentimes having that can actually save you a little bit of money on your insurance and offset the cost of what it takes to, pay a consultant to come in and help you put that in place. But for any of those operators that are listening, I think, we always talk, we always start the show with. What’s new? What came across the desk this week? What’s going on? And I felt like that, it’s been pretty much everywhere in the news and everybody should be aware of it, but it was good to hit on it and address it. And like I said there’s experts that do that.

But I think it’s a good kind of gut check moment for everybody to say, Hey, do we have a plan? And what can we do? And do we need to find someone reach out for help to get it in place? 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think, keep going.

Zach Stoltenberg: Moving on.

Brian Searl: Yeah, the key takeaway is do something right? And whether you have the resources to hire that group right away or you don’t go to Chat GPT, create a basic disaster plan. Have a starting point somewhere. Not that it’s gonna be perfect, right? But then take that and rehearse it with your employees. I think those are the two things.

Have a plan, make sure your staff is prepared to execute it. Can we all basically agree on those two things as a starting point?

Okay. Rebecca and Josh, what do you guys have going on? Rebecca, you’ve been really quiet over there. Can you hear us? Oh, we still can’t hear Rebecca. She doesn’t have a microphone

Josh Hansen: Mute.

Brian Searl: We can’t hear you, Rebecca. Okay. Josh, start us off. Tell us, I know you introduced your property a little bit, but tell us a little bit more about what you have going on there. 

Josh Hansen: Today actually we’ve got about what, Becky, 200 kids here for a field trip, kids camp going on. So if you hear screaming in the background, it’s either my kids or the kids that are at that kids camp. One of the, one of the two.

Brian Searl: You don’t want the kids quiet. We know that. So as long as they’re loud, then they’re probably safe. 

Josh Hansen: That’s right. That’s right. Just finished up 4th of July. We had a big 4th of July festival had 1500 people here on site for that. It’s been a whirlwind last week here for us. 

Brian Searl: So how long have you been open? How did you guys get started? 

Josh Hansen: We purchased this property in 2018 and Big Rock Creek was a historical estate basically that had been owned by one family since the late 1800’s. And we’re basically the second owners of the property.

It was a private estate for many years. And they didn’t really do anything with it. So we took it and started down the road of the event barn and doing weddings, and then eventually moved that into camping and glamping, which became much more prevalent and needed once COVID hit.

Brian Searl: So from the time you were looking at this property, you purchased it, you were getting started to where you ended up now. What changed? What lessons did you learn along the way? Did you end up where you thought you would?

Josh Hansen: Boy I.

Brian Searl: That’s a loaded question. Take it wherever you want. 

Josh Hansen: That’s a great question actually. Did we end up where we thought we would? I don’t know that any entrepreneur ever ends up where they thought that we’re going, right? You can have all the plans in the world, but sometimes things like COVID take you in a completely different direction. Our original intention was to focus heavily on weddings and events.

And when COVID happened, we had to pivot quickly. And camping and glamping was an easy area to pivot to. We were starting the process, but we had to move much quicker to create revenue through our own events and camping and glamping. Once weddings didn’t stop for us ’cause of where we’re located, we were able to still do ’em, but they became much smaller and much more difficult too.

Brian Searl: And have you seen those rebound now or like just in your specific location or your event business?

Josh Hansen: Becky.

Becky Lindblom: Can you guys hear me now? 

Brian Searl: Yes, we have you, Rebecca. Welcome.

Becky Lindblom: Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, I would say we’re still going strong with the weddings. We’ve actually just recently, since in the last, I don’t know, six, seven months, brought in a wedding director who’s been able to focus just on weddings solely.

That’s been obviously a nice addition to our team because we quickly realized, I think with Miracle Too, Miracle at Big Rock, that’s really what we’re known for, which is our Christmas festival that runs November, Black Friday through January 4th. So it’s about a 38 day span, and we have about 60 to 70,000 people that come through the door just for that festival alone.

That’s really what we become known for. So it’s been really nice to offset, I think our seasons a little bit and bring in some revenue in the wintertime. And then also when people come in the winter, we’ve been able to advertise to those folks to come back in the summer and then vice versa when they come in the summer, tell ’em about Miracle at Big Rock. So I think, a well-rounded, it’s coming in all into place. 

Brian Searl: Josh I don’t want to slight you at all, but Rebecca makes it sound much more interesting than you do first. Rebecca. 

Josh Hansen: She’s much more interesting than I’m in general, so that’s Okay. 

Brian Searl: Rebecca, I’m curious, how did you get started with like the Christmas festival, because we’ve talked about that, not Christmas festival specifically, but we’ve talked at other times on other shows, both Outwired and MC Fireside Chats about how there’s an opportunity for people to diversify and to niche events. And, the easiest low hang fruit is something like Halloween or a July 4th firework celebration or things like that. But how do you get into something as extravagant as something that attracts 60-70,000 people and then like really uses your land in a way that in many areas of the country can’t be used for camping and glamping?

Becky Lindblom: Sure. I would say the Christmas, we’re a family owned and operated business, so the Christmas Lights Festival has always been like an imaginary dream of ours, of something we’ve always thought we could do someday. My mom is really a true inspiration behind it. My mom and my dad, and Josh said COVID came and there was another location that opened up near us that also did the Christmas Light Festival, and we were just like, okay it’s time.

And I think it was like May of 20, was it 2020 or 2021, Josh? Where we had a consultant actually come in, help us go through and create kind of our vision. And Big Rock Creek itself is almost a natural landscape for this because this property’s always been so established as like a working private estate, if you will.

It was built by engineers. So like we have 27 miles of roadway and actual established roads for our trail system on site. So it’s a natural fit where there was a road that already went around our lake and it just really, I don’t know, it just evolved into this just magical experience and it’s been something that I feel like no other place is ever gonna replicate because of the natural landscaping that we have to enhance it with the Christmas lights.

And we also utilize our glamping tents in the winter time. We actually set them up as, we call ’em, like a VIP village.

Brian Searl: Okay.

Becky Lindblom: So it’s almost like a winter version of a poolside cabana, right? Where they’re set up, we have a heater in ’em. They’re all in one location. You have a server that comes out, brings you hot cocktails.

There’s a fire pit and a s’more kit right outside your door. And then of course the tent itself is heated. So we’ve just become really creative, I think with what we have, like you said, what we have and being able to utilize it year round has been just amazing. 

Brian Searl: If you had to talk to the other owners and operators around the, well North America, I guess maybe the world who are watching this what would you say to them if they’re trying to not necessarily do something to mimic exactly what you’ve done, but look at ways to opportunize other areas or other times of their calendar to make the most of them? How do they start? Where do they begin? ’cause it sounds overwhelming, right? 

Becky Lindblom: Yep. And it is, I’m not gonna lie, it is extremely overwhelming and we’ve come a long way. We’ve learned how to, I would say resourcing where you’re gonna get your product from is a huge one, right?

Because shipping is always a big thing and a lot of our stuff obviously comes from China. And so just making sure you’re ahead of the game with that sort of thing. And then I would say, if you’re gonna do some sort of an event, to me, I think one of the most important things we’ve found is creating areas for people to take pictures that they’re going to share on social media.

Make sure you have something that, like everybody has to have that picture because they’re gonna come just for that. 

Brian Searl: Alright, anything else you wanna add that I forgot to ask 

Becky Lindblom: Josh? Anything you wanna add there?

Josh Hansen: You hit the nail on the head. 

Brian Searl: We wanna make sure it get to Natalie here from Camp V. So Natalie same question to you, I guess in the beginning. Tell us a little bit more about Camp V. 

Natalie Binder: Yeah similar to their story, not quite as old, but it is a historic property. It was built in 1942 to house the engineers who were actually working as part of the Manhattan Project.

So this is a community that was based in extraction. And then all of the mines closed down in the, I guess late ’70s, early ’80s. My family’s actually from there. I wasn’t born and raised there just because there was no industry. So my family had to leave but I am fourth generation, to be back on these lands.

My grandmother was actually secretary to the president of the Vanadium Corporation. But the interesting thing is that actually, I ended up in Telluride in hospitality, and I was looking for a project to do outdoor hospitality on, I didn’t know when I put this property under contract that actually my grandmother had worked for the vanadium company because they grew up in town.

And so I didn’t know that there was even that history there. So that was just an interesting connection to the land. And we went out and raised the money. We actually broke ground right at the start of COVID. So that was an interesting adventure because the cost of materials as we know doubled or tripled.

And like most projects going over budget, we like really went over budget. I mean it was a great time to be building. And then we were able to activate this 12 acres of primitive camping that we have down on the San Miguel River. ‘Cause the property’s kind of broken up into levels and so we were able to capture some of that increased camping while we were restoring these historic cabins and developing the rest of the property.

And much like how their festival got started during COVID, because we were in a I guess a more conservative county, we were actually able to have just a very small gathering with social distancing during COVID with about 75 people. And we weren’t planning on getting into the festival business, but because people just really loved the property and felt a connection to it, they encourage us to keep going.

And so before you knew it we’ve now created this music festival called Planet V Fest. And I’ll agree with Rebecca. It’s extremely overwhelming. It’s so much work to operate like a normal outdoor hospitality business and then like layer on a festival. ’cause we’re not like a year round festival event company, we do events, but doing a festival or a big special event, so much different than obviously weddings and retreats and whatnot. And it’s such a kind of a passion in a lot of respects because we get so much great feedback and love from it. But it’s also been a great marketing channel.

So getting that many people on the property for something different has really been a great marketing tool to book a wedding or to book a birthday or to book a retreat because they’re able to experience the property in a different way and be like, oh, great, this is how my wedding could go, or this is how my 50th birthday could go.

And then one of the other interesting things that happened because we are in a rural transitional community, is that we were able to get a $2 million grant from the state of Colorado because we were impacted by COVID. It was a once in a lifetime granting opportunity with the surplus that the state of Colorado had in tourism.

And so that allowed us to build this Strohboid pavilion tent, which came from Austria, which was super interesting, architecturally to do another 3000 square foot event space, bathhouse, and a greenhouse. We’re just finishing up that grant. And so that’s really helping us in this really remote rural destination that we have to do more events and retreats because we don’t get as much drive traffic as more as established destinations might get.

This is a community that’s very much transitioning from extraction with a mix of outdoor hospitality and ranching. And so yeah, it’s been an interesting journey. Like I said we had the fire, we’ve been in the heart of a public lands battle where the community didn’t want it and we wanted it.

So we signed up for obviously way more just like social rural community side things than maybe we’d anticipated. But it’s a special place and we’re proud of what we’ve built thus far. 

Brian Searl: Zach, what am I forgetting to ask? You always have good questions.

Zach Stoltenberg: I would be curious. Just, I’m out in Colorado right now. I actually spent last night in Montrose visiting with John with Secret Creek out there, seeing their manufacturing facility.

Natalie Binder: Yeah. Love John.

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah. So I was not far from you. But I’m curious because that’s not an easy part of Colorado to get to. Like you said, you’re so far away from everything else that’s there. Where’s your main draw? Like where, I don’t know if you’ve done any data or looked at your bookings or things. But where is your primary guest coming from? Is it locals, is it the typical two, three hour away, or is it people passing through there maybe on the way to, like a Mesa Verde or Grand Canyon or some other destination?

What is the draw that’s making Camp V work so well?

Natalie Binder: Yeah, it’s interesting because after we opened and I think that we had anticipated just getting more of that flow over from Moab, right? ’cause we’re a little over an hour away from them. And certainly we’re still getting part of that, right?

When people are looking at a geo let’s say Google Map or they’re looking at a traditional, like an Airbnb mapping, right? As the crow flies, it’s not that far. And so we are picking up some of that, but obviously not as much as we thought. And so suddenly we were like, wow, okay, we’re in this more remote destination.

And then we’re like, wait, let’s make the remote destination work and be the positive and not be the negative. And so we get into more of like that. We’ve got dark skies, right? We’re in a dark sky preserve. This is one of the few places that you can like really, truly see the Milky Way and that your nervous system can calm down.

And so then we had to pivot in using this rural out of the way, place to our advantage. And the majority of our business then is driven by events and that’s why people book an event there. So whether that’s a wellness retreat, a yoga retreat or even a corporate retreat like where I’m like, you wanna get together with your team in a place, but there’s no distractions, like this is the place.

And so we’ve had to go out and market much more to that. Also because of the size of the property, there’s very few places in Colorado or in our region where you could have five, 600 people and not have like noise ordinances. Or obviously we adhere to fire restrictions when we need to, but there’s not a lot of restrictions.

So people are able to have like later bonfires and having music going later. So really the event and the retreat business, those clients are coming from within the state we get a lot of guests from the Denver Metro area because again something that offers this kind of peace and quiet is actually.

Kind of hard to find. I know we’ve got a lot of other beautiful places in the state of Colorado, but they do happen to be next to population areas, which is better for business of course. But our transient guests we are getting some of that spillover from Moab, some of that last minute traffic.

I’m sure many of us are experiencing that day of bookings, which is just harder for all of us to manage. But we are getting that because there’s really nowhere to stay from in between Moab, I mean you’ve got Gateway, but all the way to Telluride mantras right there. There’s really not a lot of options.

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah.

Brian Searl: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. Have you noticed any fall off from Moab this year? ’cause we have a lot of people who say they’re down 30% at Moab. ’cause the National Park issues. 

Natalie Binder: Yeah we certainly we’re not seeing as much, like there were a lot of people, I would say last year or the year before that were basing because they were getting shot out of Moab, and they were like, oh, wow this, even though this is an hour and a half drive, there’s Moab is sold out. And I have seen a drop in that. We haven’t seen as much of that international last minute traffic that we think is a pull from Moab, as we were seeing.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Natalie Binder: However, because of our relationships in Telluride and of course like Montrose in that area we are pulling a little bit more from those more local areas, but they’re one night stays because it’s more of that staycation.

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah.

Natalie Binder: Yeah, I mean it’s an ongoing challenge for us in the destination. So we have to continually be really creative. And then we have to also start doing a little, and we are doing it more of that outbound where we’re looking for groups and we’re saying like, Hey, Van Life Group, or, this kind of group or as an example, you’ve got like the Range Rover groups and some of those things like, Hey, why don’t you come try our property? So instead of relying on them contacting us, we are doing a lot more outbound where we’re calling on groups. 

Brian Searl: So what would you say, obviously we talked to Rebecca about this, there’s a lot of campground owners and operators watching this and you seem to have a good head on your shoulders for marketing.

What would you say to some of these people who are in maybe closer to national parks who are seeing decreased traffic this year or in more rural areas who are not as up or flat as much as they were last year? Because people are staying closer to home because of the economy. Where’s a place that they can start to reinvent, maybe not reinvent themselves, but reinvent how they market, what the assets are that they have?

Natalie Binder: Yeah, we’re always say very budget conscious, and so we try to get really creative and scrappy here. One great resource that Colorado has, and I’m sure other states have it is the state tourism organization, right? So trying to host more journalists during this time and get some of that really good press, right?

So like coming up with the things you have on the property already, right? We have great stargazing, so we do a stargazing and snuggles package where we build a fire. We can bring in a local astronomer for a little bit more, but even without the local astronomer, we set up a bunch of pillows and we do warm cider and cookies and we have a star map and journalists are looking for content.

And so when we’re a little bit slower like this is a really good opportunity to get those either influencers or journalists to the property. We do this in partnership with the state of Colorado because they’re just great tourism partners. And again, they’re trying to spread that love out to the more, obviously they do a lot of urban things, but they are looking for these more rural outdoor hospitality type stories.

And I think that’s a great thing that we can focus on when we feel like we’re down a little bit more. And then of course, just partnerships in general, right? So we’re talking to, to, to more, local nonprofits and figuring out either how can we host them or how can we do things with them that that give us more exposure and give us exposure to their audience.

Brian Searl: All right. Zach, did I miss anything for Josh too, or Rebecca?

Josh Hansen: No, I think for us, as far as I love the ideas that Natalie had there, actually I was writing down the stargazing. That’s a great idea. For us as far as advertising is concerned influencers have been fantastic for us. They’re hit and miss.

Sometimes somebody could have a hundred thousand followers and you get absolutely no traffic from ’em, and somebody else could come out and have 10,000 followers and you get the best traffic you’ve ever gotten. I don’t know if you experienced the same thing, Natalie. 

Natalie Binder: Yeah, totally, hit or miss. 

Josh Hansen: But it’s definitely all over the map and we do a ton of stuff on Facebook and Instagram, paid ads that seem to be successful for us in trying to get people that maybe don’t know about our property because that’s more where we’re trying to get our word out. They’re not exactly searching for us on Google quite yet. The only thing that does well for us on Google is just the term glamping or camping do well for us. So I don’t know if other folks do the same thing or not, but. 

Brian Searl: I think that’s a larger discussion we could have maybe on a separate show, but that’s, for sure that’s where I think marketing overall is going as we look at our clients is focusing on that awareness piece of it. There’s so much obsession right now with clicks from Google and rankings and Google and insert 200 other things, right? But the future I think with AI and a few different tools is gonna be like, just awareness.

How many answers to questions can you be? How many times can you put yourself out there for unique things like weddings or stargazing or something else where people just don’t know yet to come look for you. And if you can reach out to them proactively, they’re like, oh, I had never thought about this before, but wow.

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think

Brian Searl: Zach, you were gonna. Yeah, go ahead Zach.

Zach Stoltenberg: I think this is interesting this week that, both of our guests here that are featured in their properties a large part of their business model really is about events, experiences, all of that with the accommodations being secondary.

I think a lot of time we’ve always talked about one of the things that makes outdoor hospitality unique is that it’s an experience, not an accommodation. And that’s what kind of differentiates it from traditional hospitality. But I still think a lot of glamping operators are probably in that mode where yes, we’re gonna create the experience, but it’s still really about the glamping piece, right?

It’s about marketing directly to that end user, who’s looking for an accommodation and then delivering more, delivering that experience to be able to generate the higher revenues and, deliver something that is unique and special. But I think the example that both of these guests are setting is taking that even further and saying we’re not looking for just a guest that wants to come stay with us and then, deliver a really premium experience to it. We’re literally gonna build that around these larger events. We’re gonna base it solely on experiences and groups and events and those larger bookings that then the trickle down of that is, yes we happen to rent a bunch of units and get to deliver that experience to each one of those guests.

And then by the way, we hope they love it and maybe they come back. They came out originally for.

Natalie Binder: Yes.

Zach Stoltenberg: Corporate event or retreat, or they read about it in a newspaper magazine article. They said, yeah, maybe we’ll book our next company thing out there and they did it. And that’s the excuse to get 20, 25 executives out there for two days in strategic planning and they have a good time. 

Best meeting ever if you gotta go to a meeting, let’s keep doing meetings like this. But then they all wanna come back with their wives, with their kids, with their families, that their husbands, significant others and they say, we went out here for this work thing, but this was awesome and let’s go back out as a family and let’s do that again.

Becky Lindblom: You’re literally gaining a customer for life. You really are. You’re building so many relationships with so many people that we’re getting people that are coming for 4th of July and next thing they’re booked for next year, for 4th of July. You’re literally creating somebody that’s coming for everything that you have forever.

Brian Searl: And I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do it, but I would think that if you start with the experience and do the accommodations as a secondary, even if you’re doing them simultaneously, but a secondary focus that generally is gonna work out in your favor more times than the flip side would. Would you agree with that, Zach? Generally speaking, there are exceptions. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think so. And it’s been interesting though to hear some of the discussion about how do you market that? How do you sell it? How do you advertise it? Because I think those are different channels. People are going to come, they’re gonna have that experience.

They may end up becoming a customer for life, but it’s with influencers of social media, with the changing face and clicks and ad space, how do we get in front of that right person, to get the first stay in. We know we can deliver something fun and unique and we know we’ll get ’em to come back, but we gotta get ’em there the first time.

Becky Lindblom: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: And marketing to events, you’re trying to get in front of the HR directors for corporations and companies and wedding planners and stuff like that. You’re not trying to get in front of, somebody scrolling Instagram that might be looking for a place.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: To go with their boyfriend for that weekend. 

Natalie Binder: Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So how do you advertise to both and how do you get ’em out there for that first time? 

Natalie Binder: There’s a lot of relationship marketing that goes into this, right? As an example, Telluride has 200 nonprofits. We know that they all need to have their yearly board meeting, retreat or whatnot, right?

And so a lot of that is showing up to their events or to their screening or their whatever and saying Hey, we’d love to host you at your next board retreat or whatnot. And we’ve really found that by just doing a lot of that kind of boots on the ground, like relationship marketing and making friends with people and then word of mouth.

They’re like, oh my God, we just had the best corporate retreat ever. I’m gonna tell all of my friends at this next thing. Or at the YPO event or at this. And we’ve just found forgiven, I think like our location and size that it’s been more of that boots on the ground relationship and word of mouth.

And almost everything we do is very organic in that way. We’re not getting any paper clips like stranger. It’s like a friend of a friend. So it’s very grassroots. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. We can talk about this forever guys, but I think we’re a little bit late and I’m sure people have a few meetings to get to another commitments throughout the day. So we appreciate you spending an hour with us. Natalie, where can they learn more about Camp V? 

Natalie Binder: campv.com. 

Brian Searl: And any final thoughts for us? 

Natalie Binder: No, I just really appreciate the discussion and this is a, such a fun dynamic industry and as much as we can help each other, and we’re certainly always here to share resources and same. So thank you for doing this. 

Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Natalie Josh or Josh. Final thoughts, 

Josh Hansen: Find us at bigrockcreekwi.com or [email protected] for our Christmas Light Festival. My final thought would be you can glamp or camp early in the week, just as much as you can on the weekend, and sometimes it’s better early in the week.

Natalie Binder: Great thought. 

Brian Searl: We have mostly owners and operators, but maybe in the shoulder season when they shut down their properties. But Rebecca, any final thoughts? 

Becky Lindblom: Yeah, no, I appreciate you guys doing this as well, and I think the discussion is great and I, I’d be happy to be a part of this. Like you said, we could talk about this I think all day. So anytime I think this is great and lovely feedback to get from fellow campground owners. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Zach. Last but not least. 

Zach Stoltenberg: You can find me at lja.com. You can email me [email protected] or LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the good usual social channels.

I’d say my last kind of takeaway that, I love that you mentioned relationships, right? Like it’s something I think is not talked about often enough that you know someone that you have and you build a relationship with first, the business becomes second and the business almost becomes second nature, right?

People like to do business, they like to spend money with people that they already have that relationship with. And I think that’s showing some wisdom coming from you that it is that, it’s that word of mouth. It’s that referral. It’s that relationship base, right? We know when we come here, we have a great time. And so that really stuck out to me. And I think that’s a really wise way of looking at it.

Natalie Binder: Thank you. 

Brian Searl: Thank you everybody for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Really appreciate everybody being here. The good discussion the topic switching and learning about all your businesses and things like that.

For those of you who aren’t tired of hearing of me yet I have another podcast coming up in 4, 55 minutes with Scott Bahr, who does the KOA North American Campground reports and Greg Emmert from Verio. And we’re gonna talk about the Campground of the future today, I think we’re gonna look back at how things have changed from 1975, 2025 and some different things like that.

And we’ll have a follow up episode in a couple weeks. We’re gonna talk about where we think it’s gonna go with drones and flying cars and all kinds of cool stuff. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. If not, we’ll see you on another episode of MC Fireside Chats next week guys. Take care. See you. 

Becky Lindblom: Thank you.

Natalie Binder: Thank you. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Thanks everybody.