Time will tell on biker turnout in Northwest Arkansas after Bikes, Blues & BBQ postponed

FAYETTEVILLE -- Bikes, Blues & BBQ may be postponed, but events are still planned in Rogers and some people say they still intend to come.

Festival organizers announced the postponement Thursday evening, right after the University of Arkansas said it would pull the agreement allowing the rally to use its parking lots.

The main stage of the festival, previously scheduled for Sept. 22-25, was going to be moved to the east lot of Baum-Walker Stadium from the city's Walton Arts Center lot on Dickson Street. In a news release, festival organizers said they felt they couldn't offer a quality event with such a massive change on short notice.

Hosting the rally was put into question after Washington Regional Medical Center sent a letter this week to the city and later to festival leaders, the university and city of Rogers saying hospital resources are already pushed to the limit because of a surge in covid-19 cases. Hosting the festival would "invite disaster," the letter states.

Also this week, Fayetteville's Board of Health and city administration agreed the rally organizers should cancel or postpone the event for the same reasons Washington Regional outlined.

Birch Wright, chief operating officer for Washington Regional, told the city's health board area hospitals are concerned with the lack of staff and resources to deal with a higher number of trauma patients that typically are admitted during the rally. Additionally, bringing together potentially up to 300,000 people in close proximity could spread covid-19 even more than it already has in the region, he said.

Bikes, Blues & BBQ is operated by a nonprofit board. Tommy Sisemore, executive director, said the organization is going to monitor hospitalizations over the next 30 to 90 days and plan accordingly from there. Weather will play a factor, so if hospitalizations haven't tempered by winter, a spring rally may be possible, he said.

"There's so much we don't know right now," Sisemore said. "We don't know what we don't know, and right now that's a whole lot."

A fluid situation

The board likely would have postponed the event regardless of the university's decision, Sisemore said. The situation was always a fluid one, he said.

"The conversation was definitely moving in that direction," Sisemore said. "They wanted to have all the information they could in their hands from as many sources as they could."

The post on the Bikes and Blues Facebook page announcing the postponement had about 2,000 comments as of Friday afternoon. Many of the comments were from people saying they still plan to ride into town. A number of motorcyclists showed up to Fayetteville and other cities in the region last year even though the rally was canceled months in advance out of concern about covid-19.

Sisemore said he suspected most of the people planning to come aren't doing so out of protest but more because riding is a naturally distanced activity. Although there won't be a main stage in Fayetteville with bands, many people enjoy the area and come for the riding experience, he said.

It was never the board's intention to increase the number of patients being cared for in area hospitals, Sisemore said. The rally was planning outdoor events only with medical staff and vaccine clinics present, he said.

"Our hearts go out to all the health care workers, nationally and not just locally. It's a global pandemic," Sisemore said. "I don't think there's any way to diminish what they're going through. It's an absolute tragedy what the U.S. is facing as a whole."

Many on Facebook questioned the university's decision to pull the agreement with Bikes and Blues while still hosting Razorback football games that could draw around 70,000 people.

Mark Rushing, university spokesman, cited the hospital's reasoning as the difference. The festival, held over several days, results in more patients coming into the emergency room than football games do, and hospitals have to staff extra people in preparation. There are no extra people to staff.

Washington Regional "has confirmed that they can support the needs of a typical game day, but not the needs that they typically experience during the multiple-day rally," Rushing said.

Masks will be required at indoor spaces when social distancing cannot be maintained at Reynolds Razorback Stadium and on Razorback Transit buses to and from the games, he said.

Rogers rumble

The main stage was set to take place in Fayetteville, but other events associated or coinciding with the rally also were planned outside the city. Camping at Parsons Stadium will no longer happen.

For now, it looks like events in Rogers are still on. Pig Trail Harley-Davidson has its Rally Off Exit 86 scheduled for Sept. 18-26.

The dealership held its event on private property last year when Bikes and Blues canceled. Hundreds of people attended with restrictions set by the state Department of Health.

The Rogers Downtown Rotary Club is leaning toward holding its Frisco Inferno BBQ contest, the official barbecue competition of Bikes and Blues, although the festival's board doesn't control it. The event is scheduled for Sept. 25.

The club sees the competition, on South First Street near Railyard Live at Butterfield Stage, as more of an event for the locals and people who will be in town anyway, said Rick McLeod, a club member who helps put on the contest.

"We don't feel like we're drawing people into the area, which is an obvious and an accurate concern. I understand where the medical community's coming from on that," he said. "Our thought process is these people are already here and we're just having a small barbecue event."

Rogers Downtown Partners is scheduled to hold a vintage motorcycle show, also on Sept. 25, in a parking lot west of Pig Trail Harley-Davidson, said McLeod, who is president of the board for the merchants group.

However, the plans could change, McLeod said. The city could still pull the permitting to use public streets for those events, he said.

A spokesman for Rogers said there hasn't been a change to the scheduling for the Railyard Live concerts planned for Sept. 24 and 25.