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Events

Bring the Bus to Your Event

One of our buses rolls up – inside or outside – and sets up a day of hands-on outdoor learning, scheduled workshops, or a full working basecamp for your group.

Tell us about your event
The Get Outside Bus set up with activity tables in an event arena at the Quiet Adventures Symposium

Why we come to events

Outdoor accessibility only happens when people can picture themselves outside. Rather than sit at a basecamp and invite people to travel out to us, we bring the program to the places where people already gather.

That matters most for groups who have not historically had the chance to recreate outside. An afternoon at a festival or a school event is often the first time a family hears that public land near them is theirs to use, and that a first trip is within reach.

Educational Tabling and Activities

Hands-On Learning, All Day Long

Our bus-side activities run continuously, with no sign-up and no schedule to keep track of. People wander over, get their hands busy, and leave knowing something they did not know an hour earlier. Kids sit in the driver’s seat. Parents ask the questions they have been embarrassed to ask anyone else.

Leave No Trace Legos

Build a lego campsite and work out where to pitch a tent, where to walk, and how to handle wildlife.

Play-Doh and Topos

Learn to read a topographic map by building the landscape it describes, then shape your own.

Save Mr. Bones

One of our least well-dressed staff members needs layering advice. Real gear, real scenarios.

Dig Your Own Cathole

Fake poop, real dirt, and a Leave No Trace approved hole.

A Get Outside Coach talks with event attendees while children work through a hands-on activity at the bus-side table

Also running: Build Your Own Fire, the Group Survival Card Challenge, a gear repair station where people can fix their own broken equipment, and trip support, where our staff sit down with families and maps and help them plan a real trip on real public land near home. As an official Leave No Trace partner we can also schedule a visit from Bigfoot, Leave No Trace’s silent costumed educator.

Workshops and Skills Training

Short Sessions, Real Skills

Alongside the open activities we run scheduled sessions, from fifteen minutes to an hour, using materials carried on the bus. Sessions are pitched at families and beginners, and our team can teach and entertain several hundred people across a single day.

Get Warm, Stay Warm

How the body gains and loses heat, and what to do about it in hot, cold, wet or windy conditions.

The 10 Essentials

What you actually need to carry, and how to adapt the list without overpacking or buying gear you do not need.

Squiggles Made Simple

Reading a topographic map – elevation, terrain and distance – so you can picture a place before you arrive.

Gear Guru

Field repairs on real, damaged equipment, with requests taken from the audience.

The bus set up for a Leave No Trace session, with the seven principles displayed beside an outdoor teaching table

Others in rotation: Find Your Spot, on digital trip planning and public lands; Classy Camps, on choosing and setting up a campsite that works; and Leave No Trace: Camping with Care.

For conferences and staff trainings we teach longer certifications, including Leave No Trace Level 1 and Level 2 instructor courses, epinephrine administration, and our Outdoor Inclusive Leadership Certification.

See our workshops and trainings

Camp Hosting

A Working Basecamp for Your Group

For climbing festivals, outdoor conferences and multi-day gatherings, we can turn an empty field into a camp that runs itself. We have done this for groups of forty, and the point is always the same: the organization running the event gets to focus on the event rather than on logistics.

Field Kitchen

Cooking space, equipment and supplies, sized for groups into the dozens.

Meals

Planning, shopping and cooking, or support for a crew of your own.

Gear Library

Tents, sleeping systems, packs and stoves for attendees who do not own their own.

Camp Support

Setup and teardown, covered shelter for bad weather, and staff on site throughout.

Young people cooking a meal over camp stoves and dutch ovens under the tarp kitchen at a hosted basecamp

This is also where our risk management experience earns its keep. Groups regularly tell us that housing, feeding and transporting a large number of people outdoors sat outside what they felt equipped to take on alone.

How it works

  1. Look through the activities and get a sense of what we could teach at your event.
  2. Send us the details – dates, location, the parking situation, and whether you have a budget.
  3. We send back an education plan, including the activities we think will land best with your audience.
  4. We agree a load-in and load-out plan together, so the bus arrives and leaves without disrupting other attendees.
  5. Enjoy your event. Our team can teach and entertain hundreds of people in a day.

Let’s plan an event together

Whether you are organizing a festival, a conference, a school event or a community gathering, we will work with you to design something that gets more people outside.

Tell us about your event

Phone (414) 436-9199 · info@getoutsidebus.com

What we need from you

The bus is 36 feet long, 12 feet 2 inches tall and 9 feet wide. We are flexible about setup and do not typically need dedicated power. We bring our own table and materials. What we need is room for the vehicle itself, and a route in and out that works for your site.