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Rally Location

1

179212

Active member
Some members have mentioned they would like a rally in the south, have the powers ever looked at some place like Gaylord Opryland in Nashville? Resort large enough to host entire MOA rally inside. I have attended 5 or 6 trade shows at the resort it was a fun place to go to.
Cons : would not be cheap.
Unknown: last time I was at the place it was BM (before Marriott) no recent stays
Do any members have an opinion on this?
 
179212 said:
Some members have mentioned they would like a rally in the south, have the powers ever looked at some place like Gaylord Opryland in Nashville? Resort large enough to host entire MOA rally inside. I have attended 5 or 6 trade shows at the resort it was a fun place to go to.
Cons : would not be cheap.
Unknown: last time I was at the place it was BM (before Marriott) no recent stays
Do any members have an opinion on this?
Click to expand...

What is average (expected) temperature the third week of July.
 
179212 said:
Some members have mentioned they would like a rally in the south, have the powers ever looked at some place like Gaylord Opryland in Nashville? Resort large enough to host entire MOA rally inside. I have attended 5 or 6 trade shows at the resort it was a fun place to go to.
Cons : would not be cheap.
Unknown: last time I was at the place it was BM (before Marriott) no recent stays
Do any members have an opinion on this?
Click to expand...

When I was on the rally site search team, I explored opportunities in Nashville and presented the Opryland as a possibility.

"Too hot"... "too urban"... "not near any good riding" were the reasons it was rejected.

It was also a bit short on tent space, however, the place could easily handle all the tents inside.

Ian
 
Southern National

Remember Loretta Lynn's And the Lake Wales Rally? South is not a good choice in July. Maybe we could move to September or October?
 
spencer14554 said:
Remember Loretta Lynn's And the Lake Wales Rally? South is not a good choice in July. Maybe we could move to September or October?
Click to expand...

Au contraire! The Lake Wales rally in Florida in 1985 was just fine. I did get chased by an impending hurricane after we went down to Key West after the rally but the site and the weather at the rally was just fine.

As was Fredericksburg in Texas in JUNE.

But any southern rally is a pure crapshoot - on that we would agree.

But so was Lima, Spokane, Salt Lake City and several others. The worst was Bloomsburg. That bordered on a criminal assault on our safety. Just examine the number of ambulance runs. One every 15 minutes on average! It was medically a disaster.
 
Last edited:
PGlaves said:
The worst was Bloomsburg. That bordered on a criminal assault on our safety. Just examine the number of ambulance runs. One every 15 minutes on average! It was medically a disaster.
Click to expand...

But, we had Flame Cars!!

BTW - I thought you Texans were supposed to be tough? Ya seem a bit whinny to me. Can't even tolerate some good old Ben Franklin weather:)
 
On Bloomsburg, It was hot all over & hotter up in the Great White North where I live.

Give the Rally Site Selection Team a brake, They have parameters that they must follow and rallies take years to come to fruition and planning. Many of the old rally sites are no longer suitable to our Clubs size now. Poles have been taken & members that voted stated when they prefer to have the rallies.
 
I have to agree with Darryl, we can't look at weather in isolation (good this year, bad another, etc., etc.). As stated it takes years - not a year, but years - for one of these things to be put together from the time one starts on site-selection til the Rally itself.

Some are suggesting September/October as a possible consideration, but that ignores the fact that:
  • you need a "roughly-fixed" date each year
  • you absolutely can not cherry-pick locations, they are set through a necessary and strict zone rotation
Site criteria and Zones: http://www.bmwmoa.org/general/custom.asp?page=rally_siteselection

People have to be responsible when looking at setting dates for the Rally, regardless of location. There is a lot of time and money invested in putting together a successful Rally and a cancellation or dismal turnout could be very serious.

Tornado season in the US - March through June
Hurricane season in the US - peaks from late August through September

No one can actually be suggesting that we consider having a few thousand motorcyclists expose themselves to that, can they? Remember, you are dealing with a roughly fixed, unchanging (3-4 day swing based on the calendar) date that has to work for all four zones both today and well into the future.

Because of these factors, September/October could be suicide for the success of a rally on the Eastern part of the continent right across to and including Texas.

Guess what that leaves you? The mid-point between these two very real dangers is roughly the last of July, but that is when it is also getting the hottest, so fudging the date to mid-July is the best compromise for everyone's safety and comfort even if folks don't understand that.

One has to look at what the realities are of the overall weather patterns and probabilities, in very broad and long terms, due to the zone and advance planning requirements. Then, you must consider that you want to leave folks 1-3 weeks travel time on either side of the Rally for their rides/adventures to and/or from the Rally.

I've driven in tornados and hurricanes on four wheels and have absolutely no interest in playing in them on two wheels.
 
179212 said:
Some members have mentioned they would like a rally in the south, have the powers ever looked at some place like Gaylord Opryland in Nashville? Resort large enough to host entire MOA rally inside. I have attended 5 or 6 trade shows at the resort it was a fun place to go to.
Cons : would not be cheap.
Unknown: last time I was at the place it was BM (before Marriott) no recent stays
Do any members have an opinion on this?
Click to expand...

Have stayed there in the past for a conference and the place is truly huge. Would be an interesting and welcome alternative to the national camp fest.



Visian said:
When I was on the rally site search team, I explored opportunities in Nashville and presented the Opryland as a possibility.

"Too hot"... "too urban"... "not near any good riding" were the reasons it was rejected.

It was also a bit short on tent space, however, the place could easily handle all the tents inside.

Ian
Click to expand...

Too Hot, oh like Bloomsburg and Salt Lake City or just about anywhere else in the US in July.

Too Urban, like having hotels at the site or many within walking distance.

Not near any good riding, oh like Des Moines.


Something like the Opryland could be and interesting change.

As the saying goes, "Just because it's always been done like that, does not mean it's not incredible stupid."
 
Travman said:
Have stayed there in the past for a conference and the place is truly huge. Would be an interesting and welcome alternative to the national camp fest.





Too Hot, oh like Bloomsburg and Salt Lake City or just about anywhere else in the US in July.

Too Urban, like having hotels at the site or many within walking distance.

Not near any good riding, oh like Des Moines.


Something like the Opryland could be and interesting change.

As the saying goes, "Just because it's always been done like that, does not mean it's not incredible stupid."
Click to expand...

Bloomsburg was a freak event for PA weather. You had a better chance of getting hit with a flood in Bloomsburg (the following year or about every 10-yrs) than that bizarre heat dome. In addition, as Paul Glaves will tell you, the site operators didn't help the situation. The facility wasn't adequate for the conditions.

However going south and beyond the mountains will definitely be hot in the summer. In the case of Nashville, the average daily high temp is 88~90 for the whole month of July and the average humidity ranges from 70 to 80%.

In contrast, Bloomsburg, PA, the burning cauldron of MOA rallies, has average July high temp of 82~84 degrees and the average humidity ranges from 32 to 44%.

So, 6 degrees hotter and twice the humidity. What more could be wanted?
 
Last edited:
36654 said:
But, we had Flame Cars!!

BTW - I thought you Texans were supposed to be tough? Ya seem a bit whinny to me. Can't even tolerate some good old Ben Franklin weather:)
Click to expand...

You know damn well my opinion of Bloomsburg. I've posted it before. The temperatures were brutal but only part of the problem. The real issue is that the facility was old, tired, insufficient, and had never hosted a group like us. Not one single building we had access to had air conditioning in triple digit temperatures. I don't blame the weather. Sedalia was almost as hot, as was Spokane but both had many air conditioned buildings for seminars, displays, and refuge. I blame whoever chose that obsolete decrepit fairgrounds, and the duplicitous management of the facility that failed to keep promises made when the site was chosen. I repeat: more than 300 ambulance runs in 3 days is a medical disaster, even in a small town in Pennsylvania.
 
I plan to go and have a good time, neither rain, nor heat, nor severe storms will stop me. Heck, it could be nice weather, and then what would we complain about. There will be cold water, and hopefully cold beer and maybe even pie.

See ya there.

Rod
 
Probably won't see me there, can't handle the double whammy of heat and humidity that is Iowa in July. Will probably salute the state with a pulled pork sammy and some corn on the cob, then head for an event in the mountains of WA, OR, CO or Canada.

The elephant in the room when it comes to site selection is the number of attendees. SLC had 4200+ which was about a thousand less than I expected to see, but had those missing folks shown up that facility would have been overloaded. When you have to plan for 6k attendees or more there are a limited number of suitable sites, most of them state-level fairgrounds and in metropolitan areas so motel needs can be met. Some of them, like Redmond OR, are good enough to be greeted with enthusiasm even after multiple uses. Others, not so much.

So what do you do? Forget the big show and run an East and West regional rally each year? Run a regional each year in each of the four existing regions and a full-bore International every few years, accepting that it will need to be pretty much a non-camping experience held at a large convention center somewhere? Continue to engage too-small facilities in the name of "moving the event around"? If there is anything that might have been demonstrated with SLC it is that date and location just may be factors that serve to self-limit attendance at an international rally. Is that acceptable to the organization?

No answers here, only questions. But if significant date/facility requirements/sizing changes were to be made I'd guess it would be the 2021 or 2022 rally season before implementation. Or, the organization can carry on with rally business as usual and continue to bemoan lowered attendance and unhappy members.

Best,
DG
 
PGlaves said:
You know damn well my opinion of Bloomsburg. I've posted it before. The temperatures were brutal but only part of the problem. The real issue is that the facility was old, tired, insufficient, and had never hosted a group like us. Not one single building we had access to had air conditioning in triple digit temperatures. I don't blame the weather. Sedalia was almost as hot, as was Spokane but both had many air conditioned buildings for seminars, displays, and refuge. I blame whoever chose that obsolete decrepit fairgrounds, and the duplicitous management of the facility that failed to keep promises made when the site was chosen. I repeat: more than 300 ambulance runs in 3 days is a medical disaster, even in a small town in Pennsylvania.
Click to expand...

Peace, Mr. Glaves. Peace.
 
Lee said:
... Here's the survey.... ]
Click to expand...
... and here's the rally location map. East coast is 2020. "South" isn't guaranteed.
RallySiteZoneRotation.jpg
 
Because of Paul's incessant lobbying we at least know that in 2019 we will be in Fargo. The wrap-up show will be "Svein and His Talking Woodchippers". :dance
 
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