University event parking usually belongs to the parking office until a department makes it everyone’s problem. Montana State University chose a different setup. In August it selected HONK to support event and guest parking on its Bozeman campus. The departments and event hosts who invite visitors can now arrange their parking ahead of time, and the visitors can pay from a phone in seconds. Both sides of the gate change. The results will be Montana State’s to report. HONK’s guide to event parking management covers the wider playbook.
Why Did Montana State Bring Event Parking to Its Departments?
Because the departments know who is coming. Montana State is the state’s largest university, with more than 17,000 students across nine colleges. HONK now gives its departments and event hosts a simple way to arrange visitor parking before the guests arrive. It is built to handle everything from small departmental meetings to large campus wide events.
Matt Critchell, HONK’s Chief Revenue Officer, put the reason in one line. "Parking is often the very first and last impression a visitor has of a campus," he said. The aim is to take the friction out of arriving, so guests can focus on why they came.
Montana State is also among the universities that adopted HONK’s platform in the first half of 2026, and the model is the same across them: departments manage and allocate their own parking needs, university events included, without burdening central operations.
What Changes for the Department Hosting an Event?
It sets up its own guest parking instead of asking for it. A department planning an admissions visit, a guest lecture or a conference arranges the parking itself, ahead of time, and decides how its guests pay. Montana State’s departments have three choices: sponsor the parking, discount it, or set spaces aside for specific visitors, whether those are prospective students, guest speakers or event attendees.
What disappears is the relay. The host no longer has to send a guest list to the parking office and hope it reaches the gate. Nobody has to stand at a booth checking names. The parking is ready before the invitations go out, and the department decides in advance what it covers and for whom.
What Changes for the Visitor?
The visitor pays in seconds, or does not pay at all. Montana State’s attendees can pay from their smartphones with a standard credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, with no app download and no account registration. When a department sponsors the visit, there is nothing to pay.
That matters most for the visitors a university most wants to impress. A prospective student and their family are on campus for one afternoon. A guest speaker is there for an hour. Neither will download an app for one visit, and neither should spend the first ten minutes looking for a pay station.
HONK runs a similar visitor checkout at the University of Houston. Guests at classes, events and athletics scan a QR code or text to pay with no app and no account, and they can extend a session from their phone.
What Should the Parking Office Keep Central?
The rules, so departments can move fast inside them. Handing setup to the departments works when three decisions stay with the office: which lots events can use, who is allowed to sponsor parking, and how sponsored parking is billed back. HONK’s platform gives administrators access controls for promo codes and validations, which is where those rules live.
Each of the three protects something. The lot list protects permit holders, because an event parked in the wrong lot displaces people who paid for that space. The sponsor list protects revenue, because a code that travels beyond its department becomes free parking. And billing protects the budget, because sponsored parking nobody bills back is a cost the parking office absorbs.
The office still runs the lots. What it stops doing is the typing, the phone calls and the last minute list for an event it heard about yesterday.
What Should Other Campuses Watch for As Montana State Rolls This Out?
The numbers that show whether host led event parking works. A campus weighing the same move should ask any university that has made it four questions. How many departments set up their own events in the first term? How much event parking was sponsored, discounted or paid by guests? How long does it take from booking an event to having its parking ready? And how many event day calls reached the parking office before and after?
Those are the measures that decide whether the office got its time back. A good first term is not every event moving online at once. It is the departments that host most often no longer calling, and the office seeing each event’s cost before the bill arrives. They are also the questions to bring to a demo.
What Does HONK Give the Host and the Guest?
A way to book ahead for the host and a phone checkout for the guest. Guest Events is HONK’s new tool for campus event parking, built to cut the admin time and cost behind department and public events and to run both from one lightweight solution. The host arranges the parking ahead of time, the guest pays from a phone with no app and no account, and the parking office keeps the rules for every lot. For public events that sell out, HONK’s Reservation Manager sells parking ahead against a live count and sends text reminders before arrival. HONK’s post on the campus parking experience covers the same goal for everyday parking.
Watch HONK’s on demand webinar, A Simpler Way to Manage Campus Events, for the tool itself, or see a demo scoped to one department and its next event.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is university event parking?
It is the parking a campus arranges for guests coming to a specific event, from a department meeting to a commencement, separate from the permits students and staff hold.
Did Montana State choose HONK for event parking?
Yes. HONK announced on August 27, 2026 that Montana State University selected it to support event and guest parking on its Bozeman campus.
Do campus visitors need an app to pay?
No. Montana State’s attendees pay with a credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay from their phone, with no download and no account.
Can a department pay for its guests’ parking?
Yes. Montana State’s departments can sponsor parking, discount it or set spaces aside for the visitors they invite.
Sources
- HONK, HONK Selected by Montana State University to Streamline Event and Guest Parking, press release, 27 August 2026
- HONK, HONK Achieves Record Growth in First Half of 2026 as Cities and Universities Adopt Its Parking Platform, press release, 15 June 2026
- HONK, HONK Provides Mobile Visitor Parking at University of Houston, press release, 19 May 2026
- HONK, A Simpler Way to Manage Campus Events, on demand webinar page, read 2026-10-12
- HONK, Guest Events announcement, LinkedIn post, 9 October 2026
- HONK, Reservation Manager, product page, read 2026-10-12
