Bikes, Blues & BBQ Revs Up Again … in Rogers

The annual Bikes, Blues & BBQ festival took place along Dickson Street in Fayetteville from 2000 to 2019. This year it moves to Rogers.

After a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the motorcycle rally Bikes, Blues & BBQ is gearing up for its return to northwest Arkansas.

The four-day rally has been based in Fayetteville since its debut in 2000 but is making the move north to Rogers this year, a move organizers say is a long-term relocation. The annual event is scheduled to start Oct. 5.

In the last year before the pandemic, BBB Executive Director Tommy Sisemore said about 317,000 people took part in the rally, continuing an attendance trend of between 275,000 and 325,000 annually since 2015.

Previous studies estimated the event generated as much as $66 million in economic activity. And since its inception, BBB has donated more than $3 million to local charities, Sisemore said.

The 2020 event was canceled during the early throes of the pandemic, but organizers were hopeful about bringing it back in 2021. But complications from the delta variant of the coronavirus resulted in a second cancellation. This year, construction around Dickson Street forced the event to move.

“We knew we had to make a decision,” Sisemore said. “It was a major decision to move to any city because Fayetteville has been home base since the beginning.”

The move to Rogers promises opportunities for a more expansive rally, Sisemore believes. Rogers is more spacious than Fayetteville, which can become cramped when thousands of motorcycle aficionados roll into town.

“We know that Rogers isn’t going to be Fayetteville, and we are comfortable with that,” Sisemore said. “The consensus is that it is going to be a little more podlike this year. That’s OK because that is what our patrons expect. It doesn’t challenge the infrastructure on any given part of town.

“The important thing is to offer a quality event. People will go to where the quality event is.”

Raymond Burns, the CEO of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, said Rogers is perfect for such a large event. “For the last 10-15 years Rogers has been building infrastructure to host large events,” Burns said. “Rogers has prepared itself and is built for large events. It’s going to continue to be good for the region, and we are glad it is coming.”

Sisemore said he is confident the event will regain momentum after missing the last two years. Organizers are often anxious about how well attended the event will be, he said.

“That is exciting and scary,” Sisemore said. “Every year we have this conversation, ‘Who’s coming, who’s not coming, yada, yada, yada.’ We don’t know.”

Local motorcycle businesses have held small events during the past two years of the pandemic. Sisemore said several smaller rallies across the country didn’t survive.

“We definitely feel like, through what we are seeing through our social media traffic and marketing, that the appetite has only grown,” Sisemore said. “Some smaller rallies didn’t survive; that’s going to put those of us that did heads and shoulders above where we were.”

Sisemore said he has worked to make this year’s rally more destination oriented. The idea is for participants to come to northwest Arkansas, book hotels or campsites for the four days and then take in the sights and sounds of the area.

Sisemore said the hub of the rally will be downtown Rogers, where the musical acts will perform, while other hubs hold events in surrounding areas. The roster should be finalized by May.

“We cater to the motorcycle enthusiast,” he said. “The people who get to dress up in their leather and go play motorcycle badass for a day or two a year.”