An end of season tent sale does two jobs. It turns floor models and leftover patio sets into cash. It also clears the showroom for what sells next. Most dealers run it for the people who already shop with them. The bigger version is a day worth a long drive, one that pulls buyers from towns your ads never reach. Here is how to build it.
A sale moves stock. An event moves people.
A clearance sign in the window reaches people who drive past the window. Those buyers already know you. To pull someone from 45 minutes away, the day has to be worth the gas and the Saturday.
We wrote about the offer side of promotions, seasons and deadlines in seasonal promotions for hearth and patio dealers. This post is about the other half: the reach. Who hears about the event, how far out they live and whether they came.
Give people a reason worth the drive
Nobody drives an hour for 10 percent off. They drive for something they cannot get closer to home. Four things do that. The strongest events stack two or three of them.
- Depth on floor models. Display sets, the scratched table, the last two chairs in a discontinued color. Price them to go and say so plainly in the ads.
- One day only. Extend it and the next one loses its pull. The inventory really is leaving.
- Brand reps on site. Ask your furniture, grill and spa brands to send someone who can answer fabric, warranty and lead time questions.
- Delivery stretched for the day. A buyer 50 miles out often assumes you will not deliver there. Extend your delivery radius for event purchases only and put the new distance in every ad.
Pick the hook first. Every ad, post and sign after this repeats it.
What goes under the tent
Bring what you need gone: out of season patio sets, floor models, discontinued colors, overstocked cushions and covers. Keep full price new stock inside, where tent shoppers walk past it on the way to the register.
Tag every piece with the sale price and the old one. Put the delivery radius on a sign at the tent. Station someone there who can take a deposit and book delivery on the spot. A buyer from two towns over will not come back next week to finish the deal.
Use Google Ads to reach the next county over
Google Ads has a location setting that is easy to miss. Its default, which Google also labels as recommended, is Presence or Interest: people in or regularly in your target area, plus people who have shown interest in it. Google detects that interest from things like location words in a search and past searches. The other option, Presence, reaches only people likely to be located or regularly located in the places you target.
Some local campaigns are set to Presence to keep spend near the store. If yours is, buyers outside your area will never see the event. Two changes open it up:
- Widen the map. Google lets you target a radius around an address, or list cities and regions by name. Add the outer towns you want to pull from as their own targets, so you can see each one's clicks and calls in the report.
- Run a separate event campaign. Keep your everyday campaign as it is. Give the event its own campaign, its own budget and its own ads that name the date, the hook and the delivery radius. When the event ends, pause it. Nothing about your normal account changes.
Meta only targets where people are
Facebook and Instagram ads work differently. Since 2023, Meta's location targeting has offered one type: people living in or recently in a place. There is no interest setting like Google's. To reach buyers three towns away, add those towns, or a radius that covers them, to the ad set yourself.
Use real photos of the actual sets, with the date and the delivery radius on the image. They do more than a stock lifestyle shot.
Post the event where Google shows it
Your Google Business Profile has two post types made for this. An event post takes a title, start and end dates and times. Google notes that if you leave the times out, the event shows as lasting 24 hours on those dates. An offer post takes a title and dates and adds a View Offer button, with room for terms. You can schedule either one to publish later.
Do not add Event structured data to the page just because there is a sale. Google's guidelines for event markup say not to mark up short-term discounts or purchase opportunities. Their example is "50% off until Saturday." To Google, a sale is not an event.
Build one event page on your own site and point every ad and post at it. Its job is to get the date onto a calendar: an add to calendar button, directions and a tap to call number.
Check the tent rules before you rent one
Under the 2024 International Fire Code, which towns adopt on their own schedule and often amend, a tent larger than 400 square feet needs a permit from the fire code official. There is an exception for tents open on all sides. Each one has to be 700 square feet or smaller. Side by side tents without 12 feet of clearance between them count together and also have to stay at 700 or under. Each also needs 12 feet of clearance from buildings and other tents.
So the arithmetic matters. A 20 by 20 tent is 400 square feet. A 20 by 30 is 600. A 30 by 30 is 900 and needs a permit even with every side open.
Patio dealers have one more question to ask: the grills. The same chapter keeps open flames and cooking devices at least 10 feet from a tent open to the public, unless the fire official approves otherwise. Outdoor cooking that throws sparks or grease-laden vapors has to stay more than 20 feet away. If a rep is cooking on a grill to show it off, plan the spot before the tent goes up.
Your town may use an older edition or different numbers. Call the fire marshal's office early. A tent sale shut down at 10 a.m. is the most expensive kind.
Co-op can pay for part of the tent
If you carry spas, check your co-op program before you budget. Bullfrog Spas says on its dealer blog that its program reimburses up to 50 percent of advertising expenses when Bullfrog is prominently featured. It also lists several sales event expenses as eligible, including space rental, power and water. Bullfrog sends dealers to their Regional Manager for the specifics.
For every other brand under the tent, ask your rep the same question in writing. Build brand-led ads as their own ad group so the claim lines up with what ran. Our post on co-op advertising for hearth and patio dealers covers how claims fall apart.
Count every lead the event produces
Most of the traffic an event draws never fills out a form. People call to ask if the sectional is still there or whether you deliver to their town. We have published how much of a showroom's business arrives by phone in call tracking for showroom retailers.
- Give the event its own tracking number. Put it on the event page, the Google ads and the Facebook ads. Every call to it is a person the event reached.
- Ask every buyer one question at checkout. What town are you coming from? Write it on the ticket. That single field tells you whether the event did its job.
- Collect contact details from people who do not buy. Someone who drove an hour and did not find the right set is a good prospect.
What to measure the week after
- Sales from outside your usual area. Count the tickets by town. This is the number the whole plan was built around.
- Inventory cleared. How much of what went under the tent is gone. Note what came back inside.
- Calls and clicks by town. The event campaign's report, split by the towns you targeted, shows which ones answered.
- Cost per outside buyer. Total event ad spend, plus the tent, divided by sales from outside towns.
- Co-op claims filed. File them while the invoices are fresh.
The town list is the part to keep. It shows where next year's event money should go. If you want help planning the reach for an event like this, see how we handle custom promotions, or send us the date and the towns you want to pull from.
Sources
- Google Ads Help, About advanced location options, for Presence or Interest as the default and recommended setting and Presence reaching people likely to be located or regularly located in the targeted places.
- Google Ads Help, About targeting geographic locations, for how Google detects a location of interest from search terms, past searches and past physical locations.
- Google Ads Help, Target ads to geographic locations, for radius targeting around an address and targeting areas within a country such as cities.
- Jon Loomer, Big Change to Meta Ads Location Targeting (April 2023), for Meta removing the separate location types and leaving only people living in or recently in a location.
- Google Business Profile Help, Create posts on Google, for what event and offer posts contain, the 24 hour default when times are left out and scheduling posts.
- Google Search Central, Event structured data, for the content guideline against marking up short-term discounts or purchase opportunities as events.
- International Code Council, 2024 International Fire Code, Chapter 31, the code the tent figures come from.
- Lake Havasu City Fire Department, FD Specification #11, Tents, Special Event Structures and Other Membrane Structures (revised June 11, 2026), one fire department's published standard under the 2024 IFC, for the 400 square foot permit trigger, the 700 square foot open sided exception with 12 foot clearances, the 10 foot open flame and cooking distance (IFC 3108.4) and the 20 foot outdoor cooking distance (IFC 3103.7.2).
- Bullfrog Spas, Power Per Square Foot dealer blog, The Co-Op Program: A Boost for Our Dealers' Advertising Efforts, for reimbursement of up to 50 percent when Bullfrog is prominently featured, sales event expenses including space rental, power and water. Program specifics come from the Regional Manager.
Fire code adoption and co-op terms vary by town and by brand. Confirm both with your fire marshal and your rep before you sign a tent rental or build a budget.