Rosalia in the rearview mirror

The organizer of the annual “100 Years of Motorcycles” rally said he’s moving the event’s double-barreled roar from Rosalia to Spokane County Fairgrounds next summer.

From 2005 to 2007, Josh Bryan produced the summer weekend chopper show in the quiet farm town of 650. He promised the 2008 version will move to Spokane’s fairgrounds and will benefit from more space, proximity to malls and – not to be overlooked – access to showers in motels and hotels for attendees and vendors.

“I’ll be honest. We needed better options than we had in Rosalia. It’s just gotten too big,” Bryan said.

The president of Rosalia’s chamber of commerce said townspeople are glad to see Bryan take the event elsewhere.

“We told him after two years that he had one more chance to make it turn out right,” said Bonnie Stites, the chamber’s top executive and owner of the Longhorn Café in Rosalia.

“He didn’t do that (this past year),” Stites said, noting Rosalia’s City Council canceled the contract with Bryan because of disputes over marketing, vendor arrangements and overall quality.

Bryan, whose hometown is Rosalia, said he didn’t want to rehash past issues. “It’s amazing how refreshing it is to work with real professionals at the CVB. For me to comment on what happened in Rosalia … I’ve always taken the high-road approach.”

The Spokane Convention and Visitors Bureau, and President Harry Sladich, were pivotal in persuading Bryan to bring his choppers to the fairgrounds.

“There was competition from other cities to get this event,” Sladich said. He said Wenatchee and the Tri-Cities both courted Bryan.

Sladich said the CVB had watched the growth in the three years of attendance at the Rosalia chopper event, starting with about 10,000 attendees at first and hitting about 20,000 this past summer.

Bryan has told the CVB that with strong marketing, the summer event – to be held July 25-27 – could draw 50,000 people. Sladich said he figures roughly one third of those would be from out of town.

The CVB believes the event would generate at least $1.5 million in sales to restaurants, hotels and other area businesses, not counting tickets sold at the fairgrounds.

Sladich said the CVB will work on Bryan’s behalf, spreading word to other markets and sending press releases to motorcycle magazines.

He also said the CVB, whose mission is to boost hotel and event attendance in the area, decided it needed to get involved in tracking attendance and the number of people booking rooms for the event.

In part, that was a lesson Sladich learned during the Orange County Choppers event in September 2006. Promoters for that show predicted 55,000 tickets sold; the event sold closer to 22,000.

As a result, Sladich has worked with Bryan and both men agree they will track numbers carefully and not overpromise results.

“We’re not disputing Josh. We’re just saying we’re glad you picked Spokane and let’s grow together,” said Sladich. “The way we’ll do that is to keep track of it and get very accurate numbers to see how it does grow.”

Meanwhile, Stites said Rosalia’s chamber will host a summer motorcycle rally of its own. It will run three days the third weekend of June, she said.

“We did a survey of the town and the vote, by more than 2-to-1, was to have another rally, but with a different promoter,” Stites said.

Stites added that Bryan promised Rosalia the event would appeal to families and not veer toward the “unwholesome.” But within two years, she said, many townspeople held their noses every time Bryan came back with the rally.

Some residents began wearing T-shirts bearing the words “Current Motorcycle Rally” with a red line through them.