LV gets motorcycle event

Tuesday, May 25, 1999 | 12:25 p.m.

Promoters have won an important sponsorship for a six-day motorcycle festival they hope will draw more than 100,000 people to Las Vegas next year.

The Las Vegas International Bike Week and Expo 2000 will be sponsored by Las Vegas Events, which funds major events like the National Finals Rodeo and the Las Vegas Bowl.

Organizers say the event, scheduled Oct. 3-8, 2000, would be the largest international motorcycle festival ever staged.

Co-producers Paul Barrow, Dean Gordon and Lisa Tenner of BGT Productions, Las Vegas, said components of the festival would be staged at several different Las Vegas area locations. Organizers said concerts, stunt shows, celebrity challenges and try-it-yourself activities centered around motorcycle themes are planned.

Riding events -- a "Poker Run" and a "Keno Run" -- also will be conducted.

The event is expected to draw nearly twice as many people as the Laughlin River Run, conducted every April in and around Bullhead City, Ariz., and Laughlin. Last month's event, the 17th annual River Run, drew about 55,000 motorcycle fans for a weekend gathering.

The Bike Week and Expo will be spread out over a larger area, over a longer period of time and, promoters hope, bring more people to the city for more related activities.

"This city is no longer just about a single concert or a fight or a convention," said Tenner, who also is executive producer of the Emerging Artists and Talent in Music event. "This is home to a whole new generation of events."

The producers say they are being sensitive to recent criticism of SFX Live, a special events producer contracted by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to develop nine events over three years on weekends with traditionally low room occupancy.

The director of the MGM Grand Garden recently criticized the contract because the first event, the George Strait Chevy Truck Country Music Festival, was a one-day production that seemed more like a concert that would compete with resorts than a multi-venue festival.

MGM's Mark Prows said he is watching SFX's events closely to make sure they are designed to draw tourists to several locations and not compete directly with single events at arenas around the city.

SFX officials have said they are planning events at "neutral locations" to avoid favoring particular resorts.

The motorcycle festival producers believe they will attract an international audience for their event. They say the popularity of motorcycles is particularly high in Europe and Asia and a British motorcycle team currently designing a vehicle will attempt to break a land speed record at Black Rock Desert north of Reno during the show.

Barrow and Gordon are transplanted Britons who recently produced the largest reggae festival ever conducted in Africa.

"These guys have put on major, major events in different parts of the world," said Kirk Hendrix, president of Las Vegas Events, the first major local sponsor to sign on for the show. "We feel this motorcycle event is capable of drawing people from all over, not just Southern California."

Gordon said concerts would be a part of the festival, which will have activities at Sam Boyd Stadium, the Thomas & Mack Center, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Fremont Street Experience. No specific acts have been announced.

The producers hope the festival will call attention to charitable causes supported by motorcycle clubs nationwide. A six-month program called Bike Aid USA is planned leading up to the week of the festival. The goal of Bike Aid is to call attention to efforts of charities and their corporate sponsors that raise money for a number of different social causes.

"This is home to a whole new generation of events."Lisa TennerBGT PRODUCTIONS