UK campervan and motorhome shows: what's coming up and when

There's a particular kind of happiness in wandering a showground on a bright day, coffee in hand, climbing in and out of campervans you have absolutely no intention of buying, pressing every button, lying on every bed, and quietly deciding that yes, this is the layout, this is the one, until you reach the next stand and change your mind completely. The UK show season is the best thing that happens to anyone who loves these vehicles. It's where you compare twenty conversions in an afternoon instead of twenty weekends, where the dealers bring their sharpest prices, and where, at the festival end of the calendar, a field fills up with vans and the kettles go on and nobody's in a hurry.

This is a guide to what's coming up. The dates below are confirmed for 2026 wherever we could pin them down, with the early 2027 indoor season flagged as provisional, because organisers firm those up closer to the time. Whether you're there to buy, to browse, to gather ideas for a conversion, or just to spend a weekend among your people, here's the season ahead and how to get the most from each kind of show.

The rest of the 2026 season at a glance

A quick word on why the calendar looks the way it does. The UK show year has two peaks. The first is spring, with the big indoor launch shows; we've just come through that, which is why the table starts in June. The second runs from late summer into October, when the outdoor festivals reach their climax and roll into the huge autumn indoor show at the NEC. The stretch you're standing in now, early summer through autumn, is the outdoor sweet spot: showgrounds, on-site camping, and the dealers out in force. Here's how it unfolds.

Early summer: the outdoor buying shows

The Warners outdoor series is the backbone of the buying calendar, and the East Midlands show at Newark Showground (12 to 14 June) is the one immediately ahead. These outdoor shows are where you go if you're actually shopping: hundreds of vehicles, dozens of dealers, free manoeuvring courses if you're nervous about handling something big, and, crucially, on-site camping so you can stay over and make a weekend of it among other owners. The atmosphere is relaxed and practical, half buying mission, half social, and you can cover an enormous amount of ground in a day.

The same June weekend offers something completely different at Stratford Racecourse, where the Adventure Overland and Campervan Show (13 to 14 June) gathers the off-grid, expedition and 4x4 crowd. This is the place for anyone whose daydream involves a roof tent, a snorkel and a track in the Atlas Mountains rather than a serviced pitch in Devon. Real expedition vehicles, overlanding kit, and the people who actually do it. Under-16s go free, which makes it an easy family day, and you can camp the weekend. If your interest is rugged and self-sufficient rather than comfortable and plumbed-in, this is your show.

High summer: VWs, festivals and family weekends

From July, the calendar tilts towards the festival end of things, and the Volkswagen scene takes over. CamperJam at Weston Park (3 to 5 July) is one of the biggest VW gatherings in the country, a proper family weekend of air-cooled and water-cooled Volkswagens, traders, a food village and activities for the kids, with camping from Friday to Sunday. It sits alongside a whole circuit of summer Volksfests up and down the country through July and August, from Bristol to Dorset to Wales, so wherever you are, there's likely a field full of Transporters and Bays within reach. To give a sense of the scale of it, the summer Volksfest circuit alone takes in Bristol Volksfest in mid-June, Mighty Dub Fest up at Alnwick in Northumberland, Dorset Volksfest and Volks Weald in Kent through July, the famously lively Bug Jam at Santa Pod, the VW show at Harewood House near Leeds and another at Tatton Park in Cheshire in early August, and Volksfest Wales near Brecon in mid-August, before Busfest brings the whole thing to its Transporter-focused climax in September. You could, if you were sufficiently devoted and your family sufficiently patient, spend most of the summer drifting from one VW field to the next. Most people pick the one nearest home, or the one with the best line-up, and make a proper weekend of it.

If your taste runs more to the modern van-life community than the classic VW scene, VanLifeFest at Scampston Hall in North Yorkshire (19 to 21 June) leans into workshops, conversions and live music, the gather-ideas-and-inspiration end of the spectrum. And threaded through July is the Norfolk Motorhome and Campervan Show at the Norfolk Showground (17 to 19 July), another of the Warners outdoor buying shows for anyone in the east who wants vehicles and accessories with camping on site. High summer is when the calendar is at its most varied: you can pick a hard-edged buying show, a VW festival, or a laid-back van-life weekend depending entirely on your mood.

Late summer: the big festivals and the August showground

Late August is the festival climax. Camper Calling at Ragley Hall (28 to 30 August), timed for the bank holiday, is the standout family campervan music festival, three nights of camping included in the ticket, live music, and a relaxed weekend built around the vans rather than the other way round. It's the one to book if you want the festival experience with the kids and the van rather than a buying day out. The same weekend, the Western Motorhome and Campervan Show at Malvern (21 to 23 August) carries the outdoor buying banner for late summer, a large showground event with the full complement of dealers and accessory traders.

This is the part of the year when a campervan show stops being a shopping trip and becomes a holiday in its own right. The weather's usually kind, the evenings are long, and there's something genuinely lovely about a showground at dusk, awnings out, barbecues going, a few thousand people who all chose the same slightly impractical way of seeing the country.

September: where the deals are

September is the quietly clever month to buy. As the season winds down, the outdoor shows become end-of-season events, and dealers are keen to shift stock before winter. The South West Motorhome and Campervan Show at Shepton Mallet (11 to 13 September) and the Season Finale at the Lincolnshire Showground (18 to 20 September) are both strong for this: plenty of vehicles, motivated sellers, and the kind of end-of-line and ex-demo deals that don't appear in spring. The same September weekend as Shepton Mallet, Busfest at Malvern (11 to 13 September) bills itself as the world's largest VW Transporter show, a mecca of trade stands, parts and Show and Shine for anyone deep in the T-series world.

If you've spent the summer browsing and you're ready to commit, the September shows are where patience pays off. The vans you admired in June are often a few hundred pounds cheaper now, simply because of where we are in the calendar.

There's a logic worth understanding here. Dealers order stock months ahead and don't want to be sitting on it, paying to store and insure unsold vans, through a quiet winter. So as the season closes, the negotiating room opens up, particularly on ex-demonstrator vehicles, end-of-line models and anything that's been on the stand a while. It's the same reason the autumn NEC show, for all its new-model glamour, can also be a quietly good place to do a deal on the outgoing year's stock. None of this means you should buy purely because it's September; a van that isn't right for you isn't a bargain at any price. But if you've done your homework over the summer and found the layout you want, the back half of the season is when the numbers tend to be friendliest.

October: the headline indoor show

The autumn climax, and the single biggest event of the UK calendar, is the Motorhome and Caravan Show at the NEC in Birmingham (13 to 18 October). This is the industry's main national launch show, where the manufacturers reveal the new model year, over a thousand vehicles under one roof, eighty-plus brands, the lot. If you want to see everything new in one place, compare the latest layouts side by side, and watch the travel talks, this is the show. It's indoor, so it's weatherproof, and it runs across most of a week, which takes some of the crush out of it. There's a temporary club campsite at the NEC if you want to bring your own van and stay, booked separately from your entry ticket. After the field-and-bunting charm of the summer shows, the NEC in October is the big, polished, see-it-all finale.

Tickets, prices and what to budget

One of the genuine pleasures of the show season is how cheap a day out it can be, set against the price of the vehicles inside. The big indoor shows are the dearest, and even they're modest: the October NEC show runs at around £15 in advance and £20 on the door, with a useful discount if you're a member of one of the big caravan and motorhome clubs, often £12 to £13 on a club day. The spring NEC show is a pound or two less again. Advance booking almost always saves over paying at the gate, so it's worth sorting tickets before you travel rather than queuing to pay more.

The outdoor showground shows vary, but tend to be friendly on price, and some are genuinely cheap; the October Malvern show, for instance, is one of the best-value days in the calendar at around £6 or £7. If you're camping on site, that's an extra cost on top of entry, usually a per-night pitch fee, with electric hook-up extra again, so budget for it if you're staying over. None of it is dear by the standards of a family day out.

The festivals are a different proposition, because you're really buying a weekend rather than a day. Camper Calling, with its three nights of camping included, sits around £170 to £180 for an adult weekend ticket plus a vehicle pass, which is festival pricing rather than show pricing, but then it is a festival, with the line-up and the long evenings to match. The big VW gatherings like Busfest and CamperJam land lower, roughly £60 to £70 for an adult, with camping and vehicle passes added on top. And several of the more rugged events keep it cheap and family-friendly: the Adventure Overland show, for example, is around £20 for the Saturday and £15 for the Sunday, with under-16s free. The rule of thumb is simple: indoor and outdoor day-shows are an inexpensive day out, festivals are a weekend's spend, and booking ahead saves money almost everywhere.

Looking ahead: the 2027 indoor season

Once the NEC closes in October, the outdoor season is done and the calendar goes quiet until the new year, when the big indoor shows kick off the next cycle. These 2027 dates are still provisional, organisers confirm them closer to the time, so treat them as the usual slots rather than firm bookings, and check the organiser before you travel.

The northern indoor season tends to open first, with the Caravan, Motorhome and Holiday Show returning to Manchester Central in mid-January (note the venue: the old EventCity has closed, so it's Manchester Central now). Scotland's largest show, at the SEC in Glasgow, usually follows in early February. Then comes the spring giant at the NEC: the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show, expected around mid-to-late February, which is the start-of-year counterpart to October's launch show. It carries "Camping" in its title for a reason, it's the one with the biggest indoor display of tents, awnings and camping kit, so it's the show for the gear as much as the vehicles. Harrogate's motorhome and campervan show usually lands in March, and from there the outdoor season begins again.

One genuinely useful thing to know about the two NEC shows, if you're choosing between them: October is the bigger launch event, where the new models break cover, while February is smaller and more camping-focused, and a practical quirk is that buying at the February show often means you can drive or tow away within weeks, whereas an October order can wait longer. So if you want to see the newest metal, go in October; if you want to buy and get out on the road quickly, February has the edge.

Shows across the country, not just the Midlands

It's easy to assume the whole calendar happens in the middle of England, and it's true the Midlands does a lot of the heavy lifting: the NEC at Birmingham, the Three Counties Showground at Malvern, Newark, Stratford, Stoneleigh. But there's more spread to it than that, and wherever you are there's usually something within a sensible drive.

Scotland's big event is the show at the SEC in Glasgow, the largest north of the border, which anchors the early-year indoor season. The north of England has the Manchester show in January at Manchester Central, Harrogate's spring show in the Yorkshire dales, and VanLifeFest at Scampston Hall near Malton in summer. The east is well served by the Norfolk show near Norwich and the Season Finale at Lincoln. The south west has the South West show at Shepton Mallet and a thick cluster of the festival-style events across Somerset and Devon. The south has the Newbury and Ardingly shows in spring, and Wales has its own slice of the VW festival circuit. So while a serious enthusiast might still make the annual pilgrimage to the NEC, you don't have to live in the middle of the country to get your show fix; the season reaches most corners of the UK at some point in the year.

Why a show beats a fortnight of online research

It's worth saying plainly why these are worth the trip at all, in an age when you can watch a walkthrough of almost any van on your phone. The answer is that a video can't tell you whether you fit. It can't tell you that the bed is four inches too short for you, that the kitchen worktop catches your hip, that the overcab bunk feels cosy to one person and coffin-like to another, or that the layout you were certain about feels all wrong the moment you're standing in it. Thirty seconds inside a van tells you more than an hour of footage, and a show lets you do that thirty seconds twenty times in an afternoon, back to back, while the differences are fresh in your mind.

Then there are the people. A show is full of owners, not just sellers, and owners will tell you the truth: what broke, what they'd change, what they wish they'd known, which clever feature they never use and which boring one they'd never give up. That candour is worth more than any brochure, and you only get it face to face, leaning on someone's open tailgate with a cup of tea. The dealers, too, are easier to read in person; you learn a lot about a firm from how it answers an awkward question on its own stand. For a purchase this size, the few hours and few pounds a show costs are the cheapest, most useful research you can do, which is rather the point of going.

How to get the most from a show

A few hard-won tips, whichever show you pick. First, decide before you go whether this is a buying trip or a browsing trip, because they want different shows and different mindsets. For buying, the outdoor Warners shows and the October NEC are your events, and it pays to go with your budget, your must-haves and your payload limits clear in your head, because a showground full of gleaming vans is designed to loosen your resolve. For browsing and gathering ideas, the festivals and van-life events are more fun and far less pressured.

Second, if there's on-site camping, take it. Staying over turns a tiring day-trip into a proper weekend, and an evening wandering the rows when the crowds have thinned, chatting to owners who've actually lived with the layout you're considering, is worth more than any sales pitch. Third, wear comfortable shoes and pace yourself; the big shows are enormous, and layout-fatigue is real after the twentieth van. Fourth, climb in and lie down. Sit on the loo with the door shut, lie on the bed, stand at the hob, open the cupboards you'd actually use. A layout that looks perfect in a photo can feel wrong the moment you're standing in it, which is the whole reason to go in person. If you're still working out which kind of van even suits you, our guide to the types of campervan conversion is a good thing to read before you walk in, and our take on campervan versus motorhome will help you narrow it down further.

The reachable bit

The slightly bittersweet thing about a great show is that you spend the day falling for vehicles that cost more than most people can spend, with the best new ones well past £60,000. That gap between the showground daydream and the driveway is exactly why Campervan.win exists: capped entries so the odds stay honest, every cost published down to the line, £500 to a UK charity from every full draw, the winner picked by a public randomness beacon anyone can check, and one person driving away in a real campervan. Go to the shows, lie on every bed, gather every idea. The dream should be reachable, not just admired from the aisle.

Frequently asked questions

When is the next big UK campervan show?

In the immediate season, the outdoor Warners shows run through summer (Newark in June, Norfolk in July, Malvern in August, Shepton Mallet and Lincoln in September), and the headline indoor event is the Motorhome and Caravan Show at the NEC in Birmingham from 13 to 18 October 2026. The spring indoor season then restarts in January and February. Dates here are for 2026; check the organiser for later years.

Which show is best if I want to buy a campervan?

The outdoor Warners shows (Newark, Norfolk, Malvern, Shepton Mallet, Lincoln) are the buying events, with hundreds of vehicles, dealers in force and on-site camping, and the September ones often carry the best end-of-season deals. The October NEC show is best for seeing every new model in one place. Go with your budget and payload limits clear before you walk in.

Are there campervan shows you can camp at?

Yes. The outdoor Warners shows all offer on-site camping, the festival-style events like Camper Calling and CamperJam are built around camping, and even the NEC runs a temporary club campsite booked separately from entry. Staying over is the best way to experience a show and to talk to real owners in the evening.

What's the difference between the February and October NEC shows?

October's Motorhome and Caravan Show is the bigger one, the industry's main launch event where new models appear. February's Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show is smaller and more focused on camping gear, tents and awnings, and a practical bonus is that buying in February often means a quicker drive-away than an October order. See the newest vehicles in October; buy and get going quickly in February.

Are campervan shows good for families?

Very. The festival-style events are designed for it: Camper Calling at Ragley Hall is a family music festival with camping included, VanLifeFest and CamperJam have activities for children, and the Adventure Overland show lets under-16s in free. Even the big buying shows are an easy, low-cost day out with kids.

I've never been to a campervan show. What should I expect?

A big, friendly, slightly overwhelming day. The indoor shows are like any large exhibition: halls of stands, vehicles to climb into, talks and demonstrations, food courts. The outdoor shows feel more like a country show crossed with a car park full of dreams, with the bonus that you can camp. Expect to walk a lot, climb into a great many vans, and leave with a head full of layouts and a bag of brochures. Go early, wear comfortable shoes, and don't try to see everything; pick the vehicles or stands that matter most to you and spend your energy there.

Do I need to book campervan show tickets in advance?

For the big indoor shows, yes, it's worth it, both to save money over the on-the-door price and to skip the queue. For the outdoor shows you can usually pay at the gate, but advance tickets still tend to be cheaper, and if you want to camp on site you'll generally need to book the pitch ahead. For the popular festivals like Camper Calling, booking early is essential, because they can sell out and prices climb as the date approaches.