Go RVing’s Trends to Know: In Person Experiences

📊 Trends and insights: Go RVing is committed to keeping you up-to-date on trends and insights that impact the RV industry.

• One trend to watch is the resurgence of in-person events and experiences.

🔎 The big picture: A larger, industries-wide paradigm shift is at hand, with both business and consumer attendees increasingly seeking out creature comforts and opportunities for escapism to help combat the uncertain state of the world.

🤝 The bottom line: After years of digital overload, people are seeking out engaging, authentic experiences in their offline lives.

• Physical proof converts skepticism into belief. When someone steps into an activation, a festival, or a pop-up, they’re testing whether a brand’s promise holds up in real life.
• Experiences turn spectators into participants. In a culture built on scrolling, participation makes the experience feel personal and personal moments are the ones that stick. 

🌎A deeper dive: Marketing experience company Quad describes this shift as the Return of Touch, which highlights a renewed appetite for physical, tactile brand experiences, a shift toward ideas that reconnect us to the world through primarily physical presence, and with intentional community and emotion.

• 🔢 Numbers to know: In Quad’s Return of Touch report, a representative survey was conducted among 2,068 U.S. adults. 86% of Gen Z and Millennials reported that touching and feeling products were essential to their purchase decisions. Similarly, 79% of consumers stated that online shopping lacks the ‘magic’ of an in-person find and 71% stated that online shopping experiences blur together.
• Additionally, in 2025, 74 percent of Fortune 1000 brands planned to increase their experiential budgets, further highlighting the importance of IRL experiences.

♥ Tell me more: Similarly, in the 2026 Pinterest Predicts trends report, the social media platform named “emotional comfort and belonging” among the key overarching themes detailed in the study.

• Comfort is consumers' primary emotional crutch, with 55% of global respondents prioritizing it as a need in their daily lives. They’re engaging in safe havens, finding relief in everyday rituals and using nostalgia to feel like themselves again.

💭 Our thought bubble: The RV industry can continue participating in this trend by:

1. Voluntourism: Organize groups of RVers to meet at a specific location for a volunteer event such as a park cleanup. Working toward a shared cause creates deep emotional ties between the brand and the consumer's values.
2. Event Presence: Host a pop-up experiential event at a music festival, state fair, or similar event. Attendees can experience the comfort of an RV (A/C, private bathrooms, cold drinks) in the middle of a high-energy event. (Looking for inspiration? Check out Go RVing’s recap of 2025’s experiential events.)
3. Brand Rallies: Organize annual gatherings specifically for owners of your brand or a specific model. These events foster peer-to-peer troubleshooting and long-term brand loyalty.
4. And of course, RV Shows: RV shows like the Florida RV SuperShow (going on now!) or the hundreds of other shows happening in the coming months, are an ideal way for consumers to touch and feel the product.