Knoxville Civic Auditorium Parking Garage C

This was the closest option to downtown. It was quiet at night and only 3 other rigs were there over the weekend despite it being the weekend of the Big Ears Festival.

Security came to check us in as soon as we arrived and called them. Cash only. On one night there was a hockey game and they used this lot for the event so lots of traffic around us for a few hours. After that the gates were closed all weekend but we could open it to leave-no lock.

Once we figured that out, it was easy. Trash cans in the lot. No water or sewer before April 1 so we just had power.

We stayed here for one night, dry camping was $35 and full hookups were $65. You pull onto the roof of the parking garage directly from the street so there is no need to navigate through the levels. Pay at the colosseum. We called first to let them know we were coming. They lock the lot at night. Directly in front of the police station. The attendant said that some of the water wasn’t working at the sites. 1/2 Mile walk to gay street, market square. Even closer to the river.

We LOVE overnighting in the midst of cities. This parking lot offers you full-hook-up (50A, water, sewer - no 30A) downtown overnighting for $65/night or boondocking for $35/night.

This lot provides easy walking into the city (about ~0.5 to 1 mile) to areas like Market Square, Gay Street (we walked to get Cruze Ice Cream cones nearly every evening), and Old City. You can also easily cross a pedestrian bridge from the rooftop to walk past the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and down to the Riverwalk area of the city. The UT college campus is about a mile walk, as is World's Fair Park and the Sunsphere. There was a Saturday farmers market hosted just below the lot each week.

Knoxville features motorized scooter rentals for transporting around the city if walking is not your go-to. An app-rentable scooter or two was nearly always parked outside the Convention Center during our stay.

While this is not a serene, quiet 'camping' experience (this is not camping - it's a parking lot with hook-ups), the noise was not bad at all. Road noise was notable during the day, as would be expected for a parking lot near a few roads and a highway. During the night, the noise was very tolerable - just road noise again, which slowed drastically. Our fan drowned it out.

We felt perfectly safe during our stay in this lot. The gate to the lot was typically closed (but could be manually opened for ingress and egress via a towed), so there weren't cars in and out of the lot. There are cameras on the lot that are monitored by security at the Convention Center. You can see the police station from your windows.

The rooftop lot is easily accessed via a surface-level road across from the city police station.

While reservations are not accepted here, we definitely recommend calling ahead to confirm that no UT Football games are occurring during your intended stay. The lot is reserved for season tailgate pass holders during game weekends. Otherwise, it is first-come-first-served. We spent 16 nights here in April, with only one RV neighbor for some of that time period, and alone the rest of the time.

If the gate is closed upon your arrival, you may be able to swing it open in order to get off the street (not a busy street, so pausing for a few minutes was no issue for us) and into the lot before checking in at the Convention Center Office (walk down the stairs from the rooftop lot and into the Convention Center building).

While $65 is a bit of a price to pay, we would stay here again given any opportunity. The accessibility to the city was amazing and having fool-hook-ups and limited/no neighbors during our stay was clutch. Cellular data speeds were zippy for both Verizon and AT&T.