MC Fireside Chats – March 20th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searl, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks. Empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode. [00:01:00] MC Fireside Chats! My name’s Brian Searl, with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here in front of my virtual background. Am I lagging again? I don’t know what’s happening here, but maybe there’s a problem with restream. I feel like I’m lagging on my side, but hopefully you all can hear me.

Super excited to be here for another episode of Campground Owner’s Focus Discussion, and we’ve got so many people. We had so many people last week on The Glamping Show. So many people this week. It’s super crowded. We’re going to have to end up doing, I don’t know, twice as many shows or something like that.

Joe, will you host the rest of them? Or, I don’t have enough time. You’ve got time to grow a beard, so you’ve got time to do other stuff, right? 

Joe Duemig: Yeah, I don’t know about the time right now. Maybe in a couple months after everyone’s season’s started, then I’ll have some time again. 

Brian Searl: Alright, Scott looks like he’s on vacation. Where are you at, Scott? 

Scott Knepp: I’m in my backyard. It is beautiful springtime in Georgia, my friend. 

Brian Searl: Can’t wait till I’m successful like you and I can afford a backyard like that. That’s nice. Do you find that tree in the back end? In the back there, that’s memorable. 

Scott Knepp: Oh, I was in it earlier. If you want a special segment of me in the tree later.

Brian Searl: I would, nobody remembers. Like I actually did a live show [00:02:00] from a tree one time. We were talking with Access Parks about security like two years ago. It’s really interesting. 

Scott Knepp: Oh, I thought that was a dream. 

Brian Searl: That was real. Yeah. Oh, wow. Everybody likes to pretend every time they talk to me that it’s a dream and it’s not real, which I understand.

But, all welcome everybody. Super excited to have some of our recurring guests back. Candice McNamara from Staylist, Joe Duemig, App My Community. Let’s you guys introduce yourselves in a second. Nate Thompson from KCN Campground, Scott Knepp from IVEE Group, and Greg Embert, too, is a return guest.

I almost forgot that you were. That’s all right. I’m not that memorable. And no, you’re memorable. I just forgot you were a recurring guest on this show. I don’t know. You’re everywhere. And it’s Tyler Watts from Broad River Campground and Ed Bridgman from EOB Consulting. We’re going to go around the room and just introduce everybody real quick.

And Moriah, sorry, I didn’t mean to miss you, Moriah. Actually, I have surprisingly only one eye in right now. My contact is also bad. I’m just falling apart today on all aspects of things. Let’s start with Candice and go from there. 

Candice McNamara: Sure. I’m Candice with Staylist. I’m the Chief Growth Officer at Staylist, [00:03:00] a reservation software company that helps with an all in one platform.

Brian Searl: Alright, let’s, Moriah, you can go next since I accidentally almost forgot you. 

Moriah Abbott: Hi guys, My name is Moriah. I am the general manager out here at Binghamton Jellystone Park. So we are in the Jellystone Park franchise and we are one of the newest locations here in upstate New York. 

Brian Searl: Moriah, you can yell at me if I mispronounce your name.

Moriah Abbott: It’s okay, I get Moira a lot. 

Brian Searl: Now I know I won’t make that mistake again. Nate? 

Nate Thompson: I’m Nate Thompson, partner at KCN Campgrounds. We’re building and growing a portfolio of campgrounds across the U. S. Joe? Joe? 

Joe Duemig: I’m Joe Duemig, I’m the app, I’m the founder of AppMyCommunity. We make mobile apps for campgrounds and resorts.

Brian Searl: Scott Knepp. 

Scott Knepp: Hey everyone, I’m Scott, I’m Director of Operations with the IVEE Management Group. We’re a full service management group with campgrounds across the country. Visit us at ivy. com, I V E E. I V E, 

Brian Searl: I’m like Greg Emmert. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah, hi everybody, Greg Emmert from [00:04:00] Camp Strategy, a professional advisory and consulting group to the outdoor hospitality industry.

Brian Searl: Are you in the safari in Africa? 

Greg Emmert: I’m not. No, this is this is a picture from another, from a previous trip to Colombia, but I’m loving all the bird song I hear in Scott’s background. So I’m going to keep a bird list. I’m going to let everybody know how many species we’ve got by the end of the show. 

Brian Searl: He did that.

Seriously, Scott, by the way and I want to let Tyler and Ed finish their intros in a second, but seriously, I was in Hawaii and I started texting him like random photos of birds. And then I threw him off by throwing him like a chicken picture. And he couldn’t guess where I was. 

Tyler Watts: That’s really interesting.

But I had Hawaii on the first species 

Greg Emmert: on the Crown Cardinal. I was like, you’re in freaking Hawaii or Puerto Rico or something, dude. 

Brian Searl: Oh, yeah. Or Puerto Rico. Yeah, you didn’t get it. I found you. I was close. Tyler! 

Tyler Watts: Hey guys, I’m Tyler Watts. I’m with Broad River Campground out of Mooresboro, North Carolina. I’m the developer and co owner of the campground and we are excited to be here.

We’re in our second full year of [00:05:00] operation and we just brought on 40 more RV sites. We’re excited for 2024. 

Brian Searl: Awesome, thanks for being here, to Broad River. And Ed from EOB Consulting. 

Ed Bridgman: Hello everyone, this is Ed Bridgman with EOB Consulting. We consult and design RV destinations and prepare feasibility analysis all over the country.

We did 38 in 2023. We also own Homestead RV Community, the most technologically advanced RV destination in the world, where we beta test other people’s products in the RV industry. and also use it as our showroom. We’re currently expanding with a million dollar pool and next year we’ll be adding 73 more sites.

Brian Searl: Ed, where are you? You look like you’re in a secret evil lair where you mastermind 

Ed Bridgman: everything. I’m an electrical engineer with a master’s degree and I enjoy being in a cave and so this is actually my private office [00:06:00] and this is our security system in the background where we can monitor. who is entering and leaving the Homestead RV community.

And this is the hub of where all the brain child 

Brian Searl: happens. I tell you if I was going to hire somebody, I’d want somebody to have a layer like that. I’m just saying I’m jealous. All right. So let’s sign in. I want to give our special guest some time here. We got a little bit we got a crowded field here.

Sorry guys, for all this wonderful people here. But I don’t book the show anymore. It’s all Sharah’s fault. She obviously does way too good of a job because we have way too many people here. Let’s talk let’s start with our special guests. I want to give them some time. Let’s go with Tyler first at Broad River Campground since he’s actually in a legit background with a van going and super cool glamping dome.

Tyler, tell us about Broad River Campground a little bit. 

Tyler Watts: So Broad River Campground came to us in about 2020 when apartment complexes, which is our background, started skyrocketing. And we’ve never built one. I grew up camping. My development groups, we all grew up camping, but we’ve never built [00:07:00] one, owned one, operated one.

But that doesn’t scare us away from things, and so we we got the idea to, to look at possibly purchasing or building one, and the market took us in the direction of building one, and we took 82 acres of raw hunting land, had one deer stand, and we brought power, water, sewer, lamping, cabins, clubhouse, pool, nature trails, RV sites, and tent sites.

I packed about three years worth of information into, 15 seconds, but a lot of ups and downs, but a very successful project. And we’ve been, we hit the ground running and we we contribute a lot of our success to the industry leaders like you guys and CARVIC and OHI and all the big leaders in the game that opened us with welcome arms and helped us when we had questions.

So we’re super excited about the campground. We just brought on phase two. So now we’re sitting at a total of 56 RV sites, 10 cabins, five glamping domes, five tent sites. We’ve only [00:08:00] done a footprint of about 30 acres on the 82 acre track property, but that’s pretty much what we’re going to be at the moment.

Hopefully, years to come, we’ll look at expanding farther, but yeah, we’re stoked, we’re excited, people are showing up, people are discovering us, so we’re extremely happy to be here and just excited to continue to grow. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for telling all my guests they’re industry leaders. I definitely am not, but that’s what they’re here for.

And I’m curious, I want to pick out one thing from the beginning of what you said first. You said the market took you in the direction of developing versus purchasing, right? And I think this is valuable insight, maybe that we haven’t even covered in depth on this show before. And I apologize if I’m lagging, it looks really weird to me.

But hopefully it’ll be fine on the podcast. And, I’m interested, there’s a lot of people obviously getting into this business over the last few years, both big and small. How do you know which direction the market is taking? 

Tyler Watts: We look at a lot of projects, we look at a lot of opportunities out there in the real estate world.

And we’re unlimited general license contractors, so we know how to [00:09:00] build. We just have to find the right project. And we were, we had went from purchasing apartment complexes to actually looking at building some. Construction materials and acquisition calls were just. Did not make sense. So then it’s crazy.

You’ve got this bright idea. We were like, so wait a minute, we can build an RV site. No windows, no plumbing. Other than obviously your sewer connection, but I’m talking like toilets and sinks was like, we’ve got none of that. And people will pay how much a month. And we’re like, wait a minute, this sounds too good to be true.

Cause you know, we’re apartment guys. We’re used to, the the toilets backing up and, Hey, I’ve got, I seen one roach. I need you to come here and spend thousands of dollars killing this one roach I seen. And. I need I’ve got electrical issues. And so we looked at all that and said, wow, our operations and maintenance costs will go way down on something like this.

So it really grabbed our attention. And that’s what really propelled us to look into this industry. And then it just snowball effect from there. And then we started, we were like, okay, what about cabins? So then, at one point we were like, we’re getting out of the apartment industry, but then we, next thing you know, we brought on 10 more cabins and now we’ve got what we call [00:10:00] 15 hotel rooms.

So not only did we feel like we got in the RV industry, but We feel like we’re in the hotel industry as well cause with our cabins, we don’t have to flip them and sanitize them and all that, so it’s been a very big learning curve for us, we did not, this was not the first vision, but the vision we ultimately landed on was we looked at a lot of parks out there in the country and we visited a lot of parks and we decided, we said, hey, we want to be able to offer something that the common man that wants to spend $30 a night in tent camp, we want to be able to offer him something all the way up to John and Jenny who don’t mind dropping a couple to three hundred dollars a night on a nice cabin and a golf cart and a hot tub and all that thing so we developed our park around that model and that’s exactly what we did and we didn’t want to limit ourselves on one Sector of RVers, so to speak.

We wanted to open up to everyone that’s in the camping world 

Brian Searl: guys I know my recurring guests know this but if you have any questions Please point so that I can talk less and people will be more interested in the show but I think you know Where do you see yourself going? Because to [00:11:00] me I don’t want to say you’re small, but you’re small compared to another larger, right?

Corporate sites. So I’m sure you have visions and plans for the future. Where would you like to go in an ideal world? 

Tyler Watts: So we always start small. We did that when we were purchasing apartment complexes and we’re looking at some other properties and projects now, we always start small. And even when we started small here, we only brought phase one on with 16 RV size, 10 cabins, five domes, no office.

No clubhouse, no pool, no nothing. But we do that strategically to first off generate revenue as quickly as possible, right? Time is your enemy when you’re trying to get open, right? You’re trying to get open as quickly as possible. So we’ve been to a fully booked park. We were very small. We’ve expanded.

We’re still small. If it’s up to me, if I’m king, I’m, I want to build a thousand more, right? But we’ve got to make sure Broad River Campground continues to thrive and do as well as we expect it to. And then, yeah, we want to continue to scale. Now that we understand the model, we understand our profit margins and where we expect things to mature at, we 100 percent definitely want to level up and grow.

And I don’t know exactly where that land is, but if we were to build another one, I would imagine [00:12:00] it we would be considered a medium sized park and then possibly jump into the large park category. It just depends on what the opportunity is out there. If there’s some acquisitions available for some, for medium large parks that have significant value add, we’ll definitely look at that and we’ll come in there and renovate and rehab and restabilize the property.

If we don’t see those opportunities, then we start looking for land acquisition and then we’ll just do it from ground up construction. 

Brian Searl: And so tell me I’m just curious and please anybody else can ask a question to you instead of me But when you look at the value add that your group brings Everybody seems to have their own unique either value add or proposition I think they’re going to do or in some work and some of them don’t but what is your difference maker?

Tyler Watts: Would you say we do a lot of stuff in house. I’m the forefront runner of it So there’s I literally am Talking with a bank one day about financing to literally crawling on top of this particular dome I’m sitting in and tightening down bolts. That’s how we cut a lot of our overhead costs.

It’s just, I’m boots on the ground every day, all day. And I’m, it’s been about a three year [00:13:00] full time gig for me here at the campground. We’ve got some other projects that have taken a little bit of time, but this one’s been, this one’s been the baby for us. And it’s just creating that.

Through, not necessarily having to hire out to every single contractor in the world, taking care of your contractors, using local contractors we’ve had, we’ve developed a really good team for example we used a local contractor here who just didn’t have the accessibility to rent equipment from Caterpillar just didn’t have, he’s a smaller guy, and we went and rented it for him, and we paid for it, and he billed us for his billable hours, and We were able to make that work and we saved a tremendous amount of money versus hiring a large grading company.

And I was actually a dedicated dump truck driver for about three weeks. I learned how to drive a pretty big dump truck. And it sounds fun and it is fun for about the first four hours. After about 300 hours, I’ll tell you what, I was ready to get out of that truck, so I think we hauled about 1, 600 loads of dirt, but it’s things like that, that my group and myself are willing to do and get dirty with.

We’re not scared of work, we’re willing to jump in and work the 12 hour days, but that’s, at the end of the [00:14:00] day, that’s what makes this project successful because otherwise, you’re another million dollars, building an RV park, right? And that changes your whole underwriting model and your cash flow analysis.

Joe Duemig: So Brian’s tired of asking questions so is that similar to, did you have that expectation coming into this? Because I would imagine that your apartments were not as boots on the ground as the campground has been for you. How does that differ? And then were you already running that in your head that you were going to be driving a dump truck for 300 hours when you guys decided to do the campground instead of apartments?

Tyler Watts: So the apartments were very much similar to that. I’ve laid floor and I’ve helped install kitchen cabinets. I’ve pulled RG6 cable wiring when we’re doing apartments. Very much the same. Use a very much the same contractors that we use on our apartments we use on the campground. I even, we’ve got some up in Michigan State and I flew seven guys up there.

We had 20 apartments to floor. And and I’m one of those, I don’t ask people to do things I wouldn’t do. And we all jumped on a plane and went up there and [00:15:00] laid floor. And so very much heavily involved. The dump truck was not on schedule, but that’s one of those things when you’re developing and you’re building something and you’re new to it, like I was and my group, and we’re still trying to understand it.

You have to do things. That are necessary to keep a project moving forward, right? And it’s not always necessarily sticking a guy in a dump truck for another, 30, 40, 50 an hour or whatever they may charge. Sometimes I gotta be that guy. Sometimes I gotta be the trash guy. Sometimes I gotta be the guy that runs the Walmart or Lowe’s or Home Depot 47, 000 times that week, right?

That is just what it takes for us to get projects going and keep it moving. It’s hectic. It’s very much intense, but when we were staging the cabins, it was crazy. I got some old photos. My entire garage, I think Amazon thought I was literally like about the, they were like, this guy’s going crazy.

I had Amazon packages showing up so much. I, my whole entire two bay garage was full of just couches and love seats and anything you could think of that we needed to stage cabins with. So it’s very much do whatever it takes to get a job done. And that’s, and I think that’s a it makes a good story [00:16:00] for us.

And it also, it helps with the success of the project because. Everyone knows cost on everything have just dramatically skyrocketed and anything you can do to save a buck here and there, that’s what we do. That is 100 percent what we do and push forward with. 

Brian Searl: Alright, so Ed, how are you similar and how are you different is my question.

Here’s what, here’s how I’m imagining you’re different. Most technologically advanced campground, you said, or RV resorts in the world, right? So I imagine you’re sitting in your bat cave there, controlling robotic arms and doing all the things that Tyler’s doing, but with tech. Yeah. 

Ed Bridgman: Actually, I see a lot of advantage to what Tyler was talking about.

I grew up on a ranch in Kansas and then I owned a ranch in Texas for 30 years and I noticed that the dirt in Kansas was dark and healthy and you could grow a lot and then we had to use a stick of dynamite to dig a pothole in Texas and so when I came [00:17:00] to Alabama I actually went to work for the gentleman who cleared my property, and I drove a dump truck for three years, got my CDL Class A license, and I drove the dump truck so that I would understand the land in lower Alabama, which is completely different than Texas or Ohio or Kansas, where I was from.

So I learned how to develop here and learned how to work with the property here. That helped me be a better consultant all over the country. Now, I’m traveling to Georgia next week. I’ve got two jobs in Texas. Earlier earlier this month, I just got back from Texas. And I just got back from Fort Myers, Florida the week before that.

So we’re averaging about three a month. But they’re all over the country. And so [00:18:00] having that background and hands on experience to understand the differences in how you lay a foundation, whether it’s in, I just got back from Indiana and the way they lay foundation in Indiana is completely different than we do in Texas.

So understanding the different. Soil content around the country being hands on has proven to be a very invaluable experience. 

Brian Searl: So beyond that, what would you say sets EOB Consulting apart? 

Ed Bridgman: EOB Consulting is set apart from a lot of other consulting companies because we literally physically travel to each unique site and identify which one of the five RV destination types best will fit [00:19:00] that location.

And then we come back to lower Alabama and have our CAD in-house CAD engineers. We don’t just hire some CAD engineer that we have to retrain each time we have on site. full time CAD engineers that understand that we don’t design blind sites and we have certain unique features that we designed that we haven’t seen in our peers but our CAD engineers are aware of that so that our designs will properly function and every site is accessible and every road is transversable.

We just had an RV in here last night who was on his way to a race track and he was 84 feet long. One RV pulling a trailer, [00:20:00] being pulled by a semi, but we have, we see that all the time now. We see that very common that a tractor trailer is pulling the fifth wheel, the custom made fifth wheel, And you’ve got a custom made fifth wheel that’s a minimum 52 feet long, pulling a 30 some foot long trailer.

And , who are these people? 

Brian Searl: I feel like I’m not working hard enough to deserve these things and these I don’t understand. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I’d need to hire Ed. 

Ed Bridgman: If you hire me, the site will function correctly and it will be a good fit if you build a resort where you should have built a campground.

You may still make money, but you won’t maximize the value of your property. 

Brian Searl: Okay, that’s fair. Anybody have any questions for Ed? 

Tyler Watts: For Ed, he’s on the nail head right there. He’s very much correct. We went into it blind and we hired a local civil engineer. And they did a great job, don’t get me wrong, but our campground was a build then [00:21:00] design style.

We literally hand drew it on napkins, we pulled states, we pulled strings, and we, I think we’ve been successful with it. Did we make a few mistakes along the way? Of course we did. But, Ed very much hit it on the nail head. Having a functional campground or resort is a big deal nowadays, especially with you’re seasoned and you’re building.

larger style RVs. We learned from phase one to phase two and a lot of it just had to do with our septic footprint out here. So we were limited, but a lot of our sites on phase two are now around 95 to 100 foot long. And on phase one for us, they’re around 65, 70 foot. Again, we didn’t really have much wiggle room there just because of our septic footprint, but those things make a huge difference.

And we’re seeing the bookings. Of course, right now, everything on our site that books up first is Phase 2, right? Because they’re bigger, larger, and we did a little custom sewer hookup. It’s very much correct. It’s crucial to have some knowledge like that. 

Ed Bridgman: And we’re still learning.

Last year, we did 38 designs all around the country. As part of that, we physically travel to each location, and [00:22:00] then we spend three days in that location developing an understanding of the local market and making certain that the local market has a demand for what it is that you’re trying to supply.

And each of those times, we average between 15 and 20 RV destinations around that site. So if you take 15 times 38, we conservatively walked on 570 RV destinations all around the country. Physically, spent time talking to managers, people who live there, guests, and found out the good, the bad, and the ugly on nearly 600 different RV sites last year.

We see a lot of good. We see a lot of things that are like, why did they do that? And we incorporate the good into our next design. We are constantly learning this. This, it [00:23:00] seems so straightforward. It seems like something you could just design and it makes sense. And it, and there’s a lot of designs out there that have been designed, replicated over and over and over.

And they’re just not functioning with today’s, RV, today’s RV is bigger, demands more electricity, demands today’s RV owner demands easier access to their sites. They didn’t grow up on farms, they didn’t grow up backing and so they’re having more issues than they did 20 years ago. The 77 percent of RV destinations are older than 20 years of age.

And they were designed for the RVs at that time. The RVs today and the RV owner today demands a different product. 

Brian Searl: So let’s take this and run with it for a second, right? Because I think this is a good theme that many of our guests here can touch on in different ways. So I want to come maybe first to Scott [00:24:00] from Ivy because you’ve dealt with, like we’re talking about the points of maybe I start with a design or I start with a construction and then work on the design and there’s Maybe I take over a park that needs revamped and needs a different design or, construction or all kinds of things.

I’ve dealt with both. So I want to start with, yeah, getting expected on that. And then I want to go to Nate who has maybe an announcement he wants to share with us. But, also just from your perspective, too, Dane, because you’ve taken over a lot of parks as well. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, I think this is a fascinating vein to focus on, and I’m this is where my mind was going, too.

As we listened to Tyler explain, the situation that he found himself in, and The joys and the challenges of developing a property, I found that really interesting because I think most often we are working with owners that are in an acquisition for a property that’s been developed and to Ed’s very well put point, parks are very different now and depending on the age of the park there may be a great deal of work ahead in an acquisition and there might be a great [00:25:00] deal of unknowns.

There’s one thing that I would really caution new owners or anyone looking to get into the space with is take advantage of your due diligence period and really spend a lot of time looking underground and all the intangibles of the property because it’s really easy to think you’re going to acquire a property and you have these funds for all the ways that you want to improve it and then all those funds go towards something that is intangible to the guest experience and what a shame.

What a shame. And it’s interesting to hear the people that have taken on developing. I think that’s really exciting. It’s really exciting to manage for anyone. But when you manage for an owner that has a really clear vision and has developed to that vision, what an amazing opportunity.

Tyler, that is so cool that you had the opportunity to sit around and take your experience and design something that was going to match that. And it’s so neat to me that you’re in that perspective now that you can [00:26:00] watch how the guest experience unfolds and you can make modifications to your property.

Because you know it that and because you set that foundation, right? I don’t want to interrupt you Scott, 

Brian Searl: I just want to point out that Tyler was never sitting around. He was probably designing it on top of the glamping tent or while he was writing Home Depot or 

Tyler Watts: We literally designed as we went.

We made a million changes. Like you come out here and you look and you say, Oh look, that cabin looks like they just poured it in there. Man, we took every tree into consideration. We took in the septic footprint. We took in the electrical grid. Like it was very much so and Nothing against the engineer, he took an AutoCAD file and he blasted, like 35 sites on phase one.

We chewed that down to 16. Why? Because we didn’t want to be a cookie cutter campground. We didn’t want to be on top of each other. We wanted to give them some breathing room. So there’s a they’re very much with a big learning curve for us. And I think we made a couple of right decisions.

Obviously, we probably made some wrong decisions. I’ll figure out. But we, it was an ever changing model, day to day. So just, It wasn’t a scratch it on a napkin and hey, this is what we’re going to do it was, oh wait, [00:27:00] this didn’t work, so let’s change this, let’s change that, and it was a constant moving target.

Scott Knepp: And it probably will always evolve, right? I think that’s super neat. And I think that also when you watch an acquisition unfold, and you might’ve gone through this Tyler too, just as you were developed, as you were obtaining the land, but so often in the acquisition process, the challenges is on the owner, the buyer, and the seller coming to the land.

To the common ground around the table and so much of the attention goes towards those negotiations that you don’t get to focus on the land as much. So it’s neat to hear Tyler talk about like his experience, getting to focus on the land. I also think it’s worthwhile pointing out that Tyler did the wifi right at his property.

The fact that he’s doing a podcast room call with this much data going through inside one of his yurts. Congratulations to you, man. 

Tyler Watts: That was almost the death of me. Of the entire campground, that was the hardest thing for us to accomplish. I will not lie. It took months and months. And I might have cussed out like four people AT& T, but I love them [00:28:00] to death, right?

I had to do what I had to do, but we have fiber optic ramp through the whole park and it is amazing. And that was another thing we wanted to do to be different. But boy, I’ll tell you what, everyone says they want to unplug. You let an antenna go down here at the campground, the phone starts ringing, man.

Scott Knepp: It is hilarious. I figured you either had a lot of guts or you had a nearby access point.

Brian Searl: All right, Nate, you’re up. 

Nate Thompson: As we’ve grown the portfolio, we’ve really focused on acquiring properties as opposed to ground up builds. So hats off to Tyler for that’s a bold move to start in the industry and do it, from scratch. That’s a huge deal. We have a park in Kansas that was, it’s a great example of a park that kind of doesn’t fit today’s current RVs, and it was built in 1962.

So if you think about vehicles then versus vehicles now, it’s a huge leap [00:29:00] for a lot of the vehicles to be able to use that park. As we’re doing our portfolio growth, we’re looking for opportunities to expand both the amenities of the current park and the current sites, but we’re also looking for opportunities where we can grow the footprint of the park itself.

So in the Canada ca or in the in the Kansas case, we did an expansion that just is going live this year and we added about 35 sites in the back of the park. All of those are much larger. We’ve got a couple hundred foot plus sites. So that’s part of the, kind of the strategy that we use as we go through each of the different parks that.

Evaluating for purchase and whatnot and having that kind of multi phase approach where we can improve the current park, but also look at how do we expand the size of the park overall with those more modern amenities and. And site types and whatnot. And the announcement, so Brian touched on this, I appreciate that On Friday we closed on our seventh park, seventh acquisition which is a Gettysburg pa, [00:30:00] KOA.

We’re super excited about that. And similar to what I was just saying, it’s got a lot of work we can do on the footprint of the park itself. We also acquired an additional 10 acres. Adjacent to the park that will be future growth for us as we look to grow our footprint in that market.

So yeah, it’s a very exciting day for us on Friday. Congratulations. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, It’s a great park. I’ve been, I don’t know if I told you this, but I’ve been there years ago because we worked with L’Rell for a long time. Yeah, she’s great. And I think I was telling your amazing new marketing person, too, earlier yesterday on the phone about how we we had been there and it’s not it’s not the flat that you expect from the the battlefield, right?

It’s a little bit further away from the battlefield, but it’s nestled so perfectly in that hill area with all the hiking trails and stuff like that. It’s just an absolutely stunning property. 

Nate Thompson: Yeah, the topology of that park is going to be interesting as we start to grow the footprint. Rather than something that’s going to be very kind of level and easy to develop.

It’s going to be a little bit more challenging, but that provides some really interesting opportunities as far as the [00:31:00] different site types and the views that we can capture and whatnot as we start to build that out. So that’s a multi year project as really all of these parks are. So we’re excited to get going on that now that we’ve got it under the KCN umbrella.

Brian Searl: And maybe that takes us further into our conversation, right? So we’ve talked about how we design some of these properties, like Ed, for example. He’s got a blueprint, right? A lot of the consulting groups do, but we’re talking to Ed today. So Ed’s got this blueprint that sets him apart and he goes boots on the ground and figures out all those intangibles and the things that that make him different.

So how do you tackle that from a perspective of maybe I know what to do. But I can’t necessarily do it exactly the way I want because of the topography like Gettysburg. 

Nate Thompson: In the case of Gettysburg we’ve worked very closely that’s a KOA branded property, all of our properties thus far are.

And KOA has a internal campground design services team. So we work very closely with them and the experience we’ve got with the other parks where we’ve done expansions to model that, but we do that during the diligence phase while we’re [00:32:00] evaluating the park. So we’ve got a pretty good sense of what it is, what the capacity is for us to do that before we close on that particular property.

There’s a lot of legwork that goes into that 60 to 90 day period before you actually own the property. That’s a big part of it when we’re looking at a property that’s got expansion capacity. Really try straw man out where you can do it, how you can do it, walk the property, be there consistently.

I think that’s something that Ed touched on as well. You cannot replicate that through as great as technology is, you can’t replicate that. You got to be there, you got to walk the property, you got to see how it feels, you got to see the views yourself and start to conceptualize where you think you can make some of those things happen.

And. Yeah, there’s a little bit of a leap of faith because ultimately it is, a vision that you’ve got and it’s not a completed plan, but we’re pretty excited about where Gettysburg is going to go. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. I want to make sure we get to, is it Moriah? Did I pronounce it right that time?

So I want to go to Moriah and hear about Binghamton Jellystone Park, and then I want to touch on maybe [00:33:00] just continuing this conversation, but from a different perspective, maybe from Candace and Joe’s. perspective of how the design and everything that you lay the foundation for in the beginning leads to success both through mobile apps, community engagement, and then through online reservations and things like that.

Moriah, please tell us your story. 

Moriah Abbott: Yeah so actually it’s been so interesting hearing everybody talk today because I just keep pulling like bits and pieces out of you guys stories and just think oh my gosh, that applies so much to what we’ve done here. My owners purchased this campground in December of 2021, so this is our third season going in and, we have been fly by the seat of our pants they started in the rental industry as well, so very similar to Tyler, and, it’s just been a process the campground that we purchased is was built in the 60s.

And so we’ve had a lot of those growing pains of where, these rigs come in and they are a lot bigger, than the sites that have been designed. And, so we’ve been working to accommodate those and just figure out what it [00:34:00] is that our consumer needs. And one of the coolest things or the thing that I think we do really great we try and be wow moment creators for people and memory makers for families.

So That’s our big myth. And we’ve really built this park around that specific model. Even though we take it from a, design aspect of, hey, this is the size rig we have coming in for these families, we also take it in, okay, if you have a group, a family that has four kids and they want to do all of the fun stuff now you have to make sure those sites that they’re going to be on, those cabins that they’re going to be on, Is it relational in your park to what the average family wants to be doing?

And so we’ve taken a lot of that into consideration and really just built everything centered around our desk and kind of built it out from there. So we have a lot of different glamping experiences. We have glamping tents, we have different yurts, a [00:35:00] couple different types of cabins and we do RV rentals as well for those who want more of a traditional camping experience.

And then we also have, standard kind of cut and dry RV sites and tent sites we’ve been expanding as we go and, similar to as what’s been talked about, you can have a plan but that plan for us changes on a daily basis almost, I check in with everybody on my crew and, we update things as they come in and, I know it’s been talked about where you really walk the park and get a feel for it, and the same is true here.

We have a 6 acre lake in the center of our property, but we are also in upstate New York, so it is very hilly. And so it’s great to say, oh, we have 66 acres but then when you do look at how that ground is laid out, then you have to start making decisions are we actually going to be able to get a level RV site in here?

Or is this where we start thinking outside the box with glamping action? 

Brian Searl: So as we look at, again, this ties back into our whole theme, right? As we look at [00:36:00] how, cause you’re new, right? You just said you were, okay. So as part of that design process, right? You’re talking about the construction and the overall design that people think about landscaping and sites and size and stuff like that.

But part of that, I think is the decision, Nate is big on KOA. You are obviously. Jellystone. So that’s, to me, that’s part of that process is do I rely on a great team from KOA or a great team from Jellystone? Do I need an Ed and a Greg and a Jellystone and a KOA? Am I just going to do everything myself like Tyler?

What, right? There’s all kinds of different paths that you can take. But how do you end up going with a Jellystone? 

Moriah Abbott: Yeah, absolutely. We really locked in on Jellystone for the whole aspect of their consumer. So our guest is who we wanted this campground to be about.

So Jellystone is all about those young families that come in and they just want to have a great time together, really that. big family bonding experience. So we really locked in on that model and have taken their advice and their [00:37:00] help and just ran with it. It’s crazy because we do have all of that input from them.

Jellystone is a phenomenal team. I don’t know if you worked with them before, but they are fantastic and all of their advice and just anything, any type of support they give is wonderful. But then we also. Like Tyler, we have that kind of background of construction ourselves. So we really do put a lot of our own, process into it.

So we look for advice, but then we also end up doing a majority of the design work and stuff on our own with a little bit of the consulting aspect from Jellystone. 

Brian Searl: And is that a market driven approach, or is that a, I want to be a park that caters more toward younger families approach, or a blend? 

Moriah Abbott: Ah, I definitely think it’s a blend.

We looked at the market that we have here around Binghamton. Now the campground that we had from the 60s it definitely didn’t have, exactly the market we were going for. But what we found was the market in Binghamton surrounding was that, [00:38:00] central young family. that is now driving to our park.

So we have, everyone from the Syracuse area as well as down through Pennsylvania. They’ve started to find us and, we’ve really become this like central, fun, family oriented campground. 

Brian Searl: Where does anything go from here? 

Moriah Abbott: Oh man, yeah, we are definitely starting strong and I think we’re just getting stronger.

So currently we are, I don’t know if I can even call them phases, we just do, every single year I would say would be a new phase, currently, I actually just put online, we have 8 new VIP sites that we’re putting in, so those are gonna be some pretty long concrete sites with private concrete patios.

Those are gonna be close to our attractions and activities, like our jumping pillows and mini golf course. I know we have a pool slated out for the future that was One thing that our campground was lacking from the 60s, so we are working on putting that in. We have tons of fun [00:39:00] lake activities and things like that, but the pool is definitely one of the top things on our list, so we are excited in that regard.

And then we already have a whole new section planned out where we should in the next coming years be able to put in, oh man, a whole nother block of cabins. Over the next few years we have, I’m trying to think of how many acres that slot is.

It’s probably anywhere upwards of 10, or 20, 10 to 20 new cabins in our newest section. Lots of expansion going on and both in the site development world as well as the attractions and activities world. And we are just really excited for the future and bringing these families in and helping create, lasting fun vacation memories for them.

Brian Searl: Something you said really piqued my interest a little bit, and I’d love to see if the group wants to weigh in on it, and then I promise I’ll get to you, Candace, Joe, and Greg, too. You can feel free to just pipe in, and I know you’ve got a wealth of knowledge [00:40:00] there, so we’ll get to you, I promise. When we’re talking about the VIP sites that you were adding specifically, and Ed had mentioned all the people who are pulling trailers, behind pulling their fifth wheels with trailers, when you’re designing and developing a park, Either from the ground up or redoing it or whatever, all the things that we’ve talked about here.

How do you determine the market for that? Is it similar to hotels decide I need 10 suites and 90 rooms or like how do you determine that? 

Moriah Abbott: Yeah, so I know for our park in particular, we’ve really taken into account the people who come currently. And the things that they tell us, the needs that they have you know, so when I have people who come in and, they’re parked on one of our sites and it’s one of the older sites, so it’s a little smaller, and they’re telling me, hey, it would be really great if this site was angled.

Again our sites were built in the 60s and they’re parallel to the road. We really had to go in and adjust things as we go. So we’ve created, 45 degree envelopes onto all of our sites and things like that, to help. help what we have now, but then as we talk to [00:41:00] them, we realize, hey, campers and trailers, fifth wheels, they’re all just getting bigger.

Nothing is getting smaller. It was already hit on the electrical draw. Even the sewer draw, everybody wants to take a shower every day. Everybody wants to, live that kind of household lifestyle, but on the go. And so you really take in that consumer need. And just work that into what you can.

At our park, we take all of those things into consideration and then we lay it out the best way we can. The section that we have now, they’re about 85 feet long so not as long as some of the ones, that I’ve heard talked about today. But, definitely long enough to get some of those Class A’s, even, some of those bigger ones in there.

And just really working with what we have, but also listening to those needs of our guests. 

Brian Searl: I think I’m specifically, just opening up to everybody briefly, I think I’m specifically interested in the VIP versus non VIP, right? How do you determine the market can sustain a 125 a [00:42:00] night, beautiful patio, swing set, maybe a hot tub, fence for your dog versus the, I don’t know, I want to call them standard sites, right?

But you understand what I mean. So is there a way that the market can determine that if you don’t know that going in? To anybody who wants the answer. 

Ed Bridgman: Like I said, we spent three days in the area, and we not only talked to current guests of other RV destinations, but we also talked to the civil, the civic leaders in the area.

Are they bringing in a Walmart distribution center? Are they bringing in an Amazon distribution center? What is happening in the area? I just recently finished a 512 acre project. destination for Polk County, Georgia, and they had this acreage setting over to the side. They wanted to have an alternative low income housing place, so [00:43:00] we designed it in sections like communities.

So that people could feel people could feel like they were in a community in this own block. And what the Polk County is doing is if you have an RV that qualifies, first of all, and you make less than a certain amount of money, they’re going to allow them to live in this RV destination. It serves two purposes for them.

It gets all of the Lower income people in one area instead of scattered around the city, and and they found that advantageous. But like I mentioned, I think I got off track. We spend three days in the area, but we do a lot more than just simply talking to the RV destinations so that we understand the local market.

And know that the local market has a [00:44:00] demand for what it is that we’re trying to supply. Makes sense. Anybody have anything to add? Yeah, I think 

Nate Thompson: one of the things I love about being part of the KOA franchise system is the importance, the focus they put on data. As we’re designing and looking at ways we can expand the current park or expand the park with new sites.

We can dig into the data, not just for that part to see occupancy levels and average rates per night and whatnot which is obviously important if you’re designing like for but as we start to broaden out into new site types or new accommodations or whatnot. We’ve got the ability to look regionally or nationally at all of these different site types, occupancy levels by time, occupancy levels across different pricing levels and whatnot.

So that, that’s been a huge goal and a win for us is having access to that type of market data to, to inform what we’re proceeding with and how we’re designing some of these expansions. And 

Greg Emmert: I think every if I could chime in for a second, I think every owner has that At their disposal.

If you’re really new, maybe not as much, but if [00:45:00] you’ve got a park and you’ve been operating it, Boy, the best way to figure out a feasibility study on if you need some VIP, or red carpet, or patio sites, whatever you want to call them start asking your people. Start surveying your customers. Start watching what’s coming in, what’s going out, what the attitude is of the customer.

Hey, would you pay 125 a night? Heck no, I wouldn’t, or heck yeah, I would. It’s, you have that data, you have that person right in front of you, you can’t miss that opportunity which is something sadly that I think especially when you’re mired down in it, right? If you’re an everyday, like Tyler, you were describing a little bit, and I know I was when we still owned our park.

Sometimes you get mired down in the day to day, and you forget to just go out and have conversations, and it’s so important. If you have someone right in front of you, an email survey can do it, but if you’ve got somebody right in front of you and you can spend five minutes, create a touchpoint. First of all, you’re giving them the warm and fuzzies.

They’re going to want to come back and see you again because now their opinion matters. And secondly, you’ve got, it’s the best data you can possibly get. They’re right there on your property. You might as well, take a [00:46:00] few minutes and just check in with them. 

Tyler Watts: And look at the reviews, look at the reviews of other campgrounds and even your own.

People will leave honest reviews and you can say, Hey, this site’s here, this campground, these sites are unleveled. Okay, then that’s a concern. You need to make sure your sites are level, shortness, stuff like that. And honestly, we went around and just toured a lot of parks. And said, Hey, we’re thinking about building a campground.

I know we’re crazy. Can you tell me what to do right? And more importantly, what did you do wrong? What did you do wrong? And then we have a lot of people, obviously, since we won park of the year, we put us on the map a little bit. We have a lot of people ask us now and they’re coming to us.

I’m like, dude, I’m not an expert, but I’ll tell you what we did. And and so it’s people won’t be in this industry. It’s great. Cause it’s not like the apartment industry where it’s more cutthroat. You don’t tell all your underwriting secrets. This one here people open up with him like, Hey, this is what I did.

And it seems to work for 

Scott Knepp: it. And that’s one of the things I love so much about this industry is like the, this is such a vocal community that we’re with, nobody walks into a restaurant and says, chef, you should maybe think about adding a few entrees. Cause there’s some [00:47:00] things I really, but in a campground that’ll happen, right?

The people will tell you it’s, It is a participatory experience. One of the things I love that Greg said, just ask. Just ask your employees hey, do you think that people take advantage of this? You can ask your employees, ask your guests, but there’s also data does speak, right? And it’s one thing to come back to an owner and be like, Yeah, we’re being told that we can do it, like people say they want that, but you can also quantify it with a tool that Joe has with at my community.

You can do surveys and you can push out communication to your guests and have them answer a survey. It, in, when they’re, when your employees are asking your guests, would you be interested in something at this price point or something that offers these amenities, just yes 70 percent of the people said, Yes.

And you put a number to it and that changes any conversation that you’re having. So there’s some cool stuff and then also with the comp set, I think I love that with reaching out to your competitors, having those conversations and like Airbnb, even just logging [00:48:00] on and seeing what are my Airbnb competitions doing?

Like where are they, how, what’s their price point? How high end are they? So there’s a lot of data out there. 

Brian Searl: That’s a good segue to Joe, I think. So Joe,

Joe Duemig: You have a question, Brian? 

Brian Searl: I set you up 25 minutes ago. I wrote down my entertainment. 

How does this lead to the point where, at my community, and then Candace from Staylist, how does that lead to the point where, or does all that impact how successful your engagement apps are and things like that, the reservation system, the bookings, the things that come after the design?

Joe Duemig: So for us, it definitely impacts it, right? The better the design, the more you’re offering your camper, the better our product is actually going to work for you. The more engagement, the more stuff that you want to get back and forth from your camper, that, that’s that’s what we do. I think.

Most of this podcast has been about development. So I had other thoughts. I was thinking about [00:49:00] other things around development rather than apps. We have been used actually at Ed’s property during his construction process was using the app to actually aim more excitement and excitement.

I wrapped around the property, sending out information about what they’re doing now. Sending out a push notification to show them the video of all the trucks coming in and excavating or pouring dirt, depending on where we’re talking about, right? And wrapped around development, that’s there.

My biggest thought that I was thinking about this whole time, though, had nothing to do with apps. It was more wrapped around, what mistake do I see people making? And that is, they buy a piece of property, maybe that is an existing campground that’s all seasonal or all transient, and think, you know what, I’m going to grow this into a destination.

And they’ve done that without thinking about, does this area support that? Are there things in the area that can make that this transient stopover right on the highway, into a long term or [00:50:00] more of a different type of property, right? I think we’ve seen a lot of campgrounds go and purchase that property or think they’re building that property without studying that side of it as well, is what can this area actually support?

Because they think, oh man, I live in Missouri, rural Missouri, and I think, man, I’m surprised there’s no large campgrounds near us. There’s probably a reason for it. Maybe there should be, maybe I’m missing I agree with them. If I go and build it, it might work, or I may not have done the studying that I need to do to build that type of property that I think should be there.

All right that was way better than my question, yeah, I was gonna say, you’re trying to team me up, but I had, I was. 

Brian Searl: Feel free to hold on to something here, Candice, and just say whatever you want to say. 

Candice McNamara: I was about to say, because I was in the same boat as you, Joe, I was sitting there, I was like, I have so many other questions.

I can tell you from a reservation software, finding the right platform. The thing that really stood out to me that I’ve been hearing across the board is that it is a multifaceted kind of industry, whether you’re building, whether you’re [00:51:00] buying. Whether you’re with Jellystone, whether you’re with KOA and ways to innovate around that and ways to really bring people to, to see what you built, right?

And what you created. We do wait listing. So same thing as Joe was saying is you’re pushing those notifications, you’re showing the dump trucks, but then you have a website up with Brian. And then you can also have a wait list on there where people are already preemptively planning and they’re excited about that build out.

But no, I was on the same boat as you, Joe. The biggest thing that really stood out to me that I want to know, because I think in this specific podcast, people are going to seek this, that are investing, that are buying, that are building. And I want to know from all the different groups, like what was your biggest learning?

If you were to have a good takeaway to say, this is the number one thing that I learned, what would you leave this audience with to know?

Anybody? 

Ed Bridgman: Five different RV destination types. And there’s a lot of people that haven’t even wrapped their head around the fact That there are parks, and [00:52:00] parks are the only RV destination type that are currently losing money. You do not want to be investing in RV parks, but there are campgrounds, and there are resorts, and there are communities, and there are hybrids, and so you want to be investing in one of the other four.

And like I mentioned before, if you build a resort where you should have built a campground, you’re, I’m not saying you won’t make money, I’m saying you won’t make as much money. You won’t maximize the value of that property. So the first thing to do is understand the local market and make certain that you build the right fit for the right For your particular property.

Nate Thompson: Yeah, I think that’s right. Don’t try to turn an existing property into something it’s not. And then secondarily Scott touched on this earlier, I think do your homework. Look at all of the, all the bits and pieces [00:53:00] because there’s lots of gotchas out there. And don’t be afraid to walk away from a project if you see red flags.

Tyler Watts: Our biggest learning curve, obviously we’re on septic out here, which presented a lot of challenges. You literally design your site around your septic footprint. We learned on phase one that the code says 120 gallons a day. Unbeknownst to us, we followed the code, right? So our septic footprint is massive.

Networked with a local campground at a, at the Carvick, Carolina’s the Carolina’s Arvick Car Conference. Come to find out, 60 gallons per day. We literally saved over 100, 000 on phase two. My footprint is smaller and I’ve got 40 sites versus 16. Just little things like that. So I called my engineer up.

I’m like, dude, we made a mistake. He’s Oh yeah, I knew about it. I’m like, dude, you got to tell me this kind of stuff. You’re not spending your money. I am. You have to have a heart to heart with people like that. [00:54:00] Lesson learned, right? So now, I feel obligated. Let me preach that out to the new investor, the new developer, like this, things like this, it would have been very nice to know that from day one, right?

We were able to muscle through it and make it work, still be successful. But, it was a very valuable financial lesson to learn. 

Ed Bridgman: Local civil engineers. will build to code and if they say, yes, I’ve designed an RV destination. I’ve been in business for 20 years and I designed one 10 years ago. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use your local civil engineers.

As a matter of fact, there is a time and place to where you’re going to want to use your local civil engineer to get your permits through. But that is As opposed to someone who has built 38 in a year, the learning curve is completely 

Tyler Watts: different. I’d agree. 100%. We finally wound up, I was like, alright, Scott, I’m going to draw it on a napkin, you put it in AutoCAD.

And then, so that’s where we got at. And so yeah, very much of a learning [00:55:00] curve. So yeah, I would highly recommend if there’s Ed’s got a world of knowledge, obviously, and utilizing that is well worth it, and it’s the same goes for if you’re doing septic for your soil scientist you need to get your property tested, and not just by the local county officials.

Hire a soil scientist to determine where you’re going. It is not cheap up front, but it will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they can maneuver around the rules in a legal way to help you maximize your park. We’re a county official, it’s black and white and that’s it. 

Moriah Abbott: I think my takeaway is find what is your thing and do it as well as you can.

Do it better than anyone else. So that’s really what we honed in on at our park. We know we’re wow moment creators, memory makers and that’s what we strive for. So even when it comes to building the park. That’s what we build around. There’s obviously logistics that go into everything, but find the thing that you do and do it better than anyone.

Greg Emmert: Spot on. Moriah, that’s, [00:56:00] so you, this is awesome that it comes back around to, because I’ve been thinking this the entire time. Everyone is talking about all these really important parts, the layout, the due diligence. Just trying to find where all the bodies are, building your vision. And we’ve got a juggernaut like in acquisitions like Nate with KCN and somebody like Tyler who is built from scratch.

And all of this all comes together with your vision, right? Yeah. But what do you need your vision to do? You need your vision to tell your story. Your story is the most important part. Who am I? What do I do? What is my why? How can somebody like Brian make that come out on my website and in my marketing?

But also, how does the physical asset and how we operate it convey that? That’s so important and people want to just, Tyler, you said it, we didn’t want cookie cutter. People will cookie cutter because I mean if I can get another RV in there, why not? That’s another site rental. But does that fit your vision and does [00:57:00] it tell your story?

And if it doesn’t, then you need to steer away from that because you’re going to make more money maybe with a higher ADR on a bigger site. But you can’t try to just cram stuff in and make it fit and make it cookie cutter. It’s got to be, and that’s, you probably can tell, and if anybody’s seen me on here before, I love digging into the philosophical side because if you don’t figure that out.

There’s a tough to tip mouse column behind Scott. If you don’t figure that out, you will never ever, you won’t have a cohesive, your park is not going to, something’s going to seem out of place to your guests. They’re going to notice that. If your property doesn’t convey your vision and tell your story, then it’s going to become, it’s not going to be cohesive.

So that’s, I’m glad you said that right there at the end, right? Because I’ve been thinking that the whole time. It’s just, it’s such an important part. 

Scott Knepp: Thank you. I want to hang out with this group so bad. Brian, what a cool person you are to get so many cool friends. But Greg, I think you said it so good, man, which is know your vision and Mariah said it with know who you are.

But, [00:58:00] and the other thing is that I’m, is that doesn’t just translate to design development decisions. If you can be really clear with that makes it all the way down to the way you train your front desk and the verbiage that you’re using. All the way through. Totally, because so often you get stuck, even just something as simple as a phone greeting, that should be consistent and standard and it should come from your story and it should match the look and feel of the whole vibe of the rest of the resort, right?

If you can find that alignment, not just in the development and let it trickle all the way down to the verbiage on your documents and the language that your team is using, it’s very impactful for the guest experience. 

Brian Searl: Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, we’re running a couple minutes over, so unfortunately I got to cut us off of a great discussion.

I appreciate everybody being here. Candice, we didn’t get to talk much. Joe, you talked a little bit more. Hopefully we’ll get you guys more involved when you come back next week. Mariah, thanks for being here. Ed, thanks for being a special guest. Tyler, thanks for being a special guest. Super great insights.

Greg, Nate, Scott, as always, and we will see [00:59:00] you all next week for another RV Industry Focus Show, this time for the fourth week. Other than that, take care, guys. We’ll see you in about a month. Thanks, everybody. 

Tyler Watts: Thanks, Brian. Great talk. 

Joining us for this episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searl.

Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground. com. Get your daily dose of news from moderncampground. com and be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor [01:00:00] hospitality.