RV consumers are converging today (Aug. 14) in about 700 motorized and towable RVs, including both members and non-members of the sponsoring Cincinnati-based Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA), on the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond, Ore., in preparation for the startup of FMCA’s 109th International Convention & RV Expo.
The anticipated crowd for the Aug. 14-17 “Adventure Peaks”-themed Oregon rally, the anchor sponsor for which is Oregon’s Beaver Coach Sales, amounts to about 1,500 people, according to FMCA Director of Events Doug Uhlenbrock.
And while he says the general buzz remains strong for the rally in general, FMCA’s first in Redmond in 10 years, Uhlenbrock told RVB.com that the total crowd size was a bit less than FMCA’s own projections.
“We would like to see a whole heck of a lot more (coaches),” he said. “We were counting on maybe about a thousand. But the 700 families who have decided to come and join us are going to be treated to a great time. We’ve got all kinds of fun things planned for them including about a hundred seminars plus exhibit halls and RV displays.
“Beaver Coach Sales, our title sponsor, has got a full complement of RVs out there, so it’s going to be a good show for those who are here pretty much in the tradition of FMCA,” said Uhlenbrock, whose consumer club bills itself as the world’s largest nonprofit association for recreation vehicle owners. “And we try to add new things to every event and do some things a little differently. But we always have our standard seminars, exhibit halls and RV displays. Those are the staples of everything we do.”
Among the topics for the roughly 100 seminars on tap for the 125,000-member not-for-profit organization’s Oregon event: chassis maintenance, RV solar systems, full-time RVing and convection microwave cooking.
Also part of the overall picture at FMCA’s central Oregon consumer rally – along with displays of more than a hundred new manufacturer coaches – have been some rather hazy skies thanks to rampant California wildfires. “It’s a beautiful area,” he said on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, we got a little smoke from the wildfires out here, but the weather’s really nice right now so everything’s kind of moving along just as we expected.”
The “RV Expo” display of new OEM units, more motorized than towable, gets underway at 1 p.m. today and runs through the show’s close at 3 p.m. Saturday for FMCA, which is currently being overseen by a management committee made up of several officers in the aftermath of the recent departure of CEO Chris Smith.
Uhlenbrock says FMCA anticipates the naming of a permanent replacement for Smith in the relatively near future.
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