agingrebel.com
If you are one of the 4,700, or more,
motorcycle enthusiasts who have already bought tickets to attend
Nashville Bike Week next fall, you might want to reconsider your travel
plans and take a shot now at cancelling that charge on your credit card.
The event had been scheduled for Loretta
Lynn’s Ranch and Camp Grounds in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, from
September 14 through September 24. Last May, event “promoters,” which as
it turns out is a guy named Michael Lewis Leffingwell, promised: “After
over five years of planning, we are excited to announce the newest
10-day rally in over 60 years.”
“The scenic state of Tennessee is within
hours of more than a dozen other states and with so much to offer,
Nashville Bike Week is more than just a rally; it’s an experience.”
Leffingwell also promised “101 bands on four stages with nine stunt
shows daily.”
Warrants
The event ran into serious headwinds
Monday when Loretta Lynn’s Ranch announced it was “cutting ties with
Nashville Bike Week” for failing “to meet the financial terms of the
agreement.” The same day Humphrey’s County Sheriff Chris Davis announced
he had been fielding calls from throughout the East questioning the
legitimacy of the event. And the conjunction of those two events set off
a press frenzy in East Tennessee.
The Sheriff told WZTV in
Nashville that ticket holders had been asking about the event. “Can we
still come? Who do we need to contact? We’re not getting any information
from anybody involved.”
The television station tried to
interview any of the “promoters” on camera but Leffingwell declined –
maybe because he has warrants. According to Nashville’s WKRN, “multiple convictions for fraud and theft, including a federal conviction in Missouri.” WKRN
also reports, “authorities have active arrest warrants for Leffingwell
for probation violations in Georgia and Missouri. He also has an active
warrant in Maury County (Tennessee).”
The event speaks to its customers mostly
through its Facebook page. A post on Tuesday claimed Nashville Bike
Week had met “all financial obligations” and that the event had fired
Loretta Lynn, not the other way around, because the venue wasn’t up to
state health standards.
The campground told television station WTVF that Nashville Bike week had never applied for the state permit required for large gatherings.
The numbers for this rally do not add
up. The proposed event has bragged that it might attract 150,000
bikers. Leffingwell told WTVF that he doesn’t need a permit because he has only sold 4,700 tickets so far.
Hiccups
Leffingwell has promised to announce a
new location for the event tomorrow. Yesterday and today he published
two lengthy press releases on Facebook that said in part:
“Launching a first year event this large
is a monumental effort. Naturally there are going to be hiccups and
bumps in the road that need to be overcome and we are working hard to
make sure they are.”
“Nashville Bike Week, the event, is
being organized by a corporation not a person. It began as the dream of
one person, but one person couldn’t possibly organize an event of this
size, so when the dream started to become reality the corporation was
formed to protect everyone involved including our customers, vendors,
and the entertainers coming to the event. The corporation has officers,
employees, attorneys, accountants, an HR department, and bankers just
like most corporations. Everyone at Nashville Bike Week is a salaried or
contracted employee. Putting on a major event for the first time from
the ground up is a monumental undertaking, and we are bound to make
mistakes along the way. There is more to the recent news of our
relocation than we can elaborate on for legal reasons, but we aren’t
letting that slow us down.”
“We have a secured a new venue and have
agreed in principle to the terms of the lease, it is approximately six
miles from the previous venue. It is larger, with more usable flat
ground, and much better suited to hosting an event of this size with
room to grow and some freedom to add infrastructure in the years to
come. It is more convenient to hotels, restaurants, and the interstate,
and it will be easier to get in and out with multiple entry and exit
points and full 4G wireless service from every major provider, something
the previous venue was lacking. It has both river access for canoeing,
and a creek for tubing, stocked lakes for fishing, and we are excited
that as soon as all parties have signed the lease we will be able to
announce it complete with maps to show the layout and vision for the new
long term home of the event. If you have purchased a wristband it is
still valid at the new venue, if you rented a cabin you will still have a
cabin at the new venue, if you rented an RV or an RV site you will
still have the same level of service you rented at the new venue.”
“We are answering the phones and
messages as fast as we can to answer your questions, and if you haven’t
gotten through keep trying, we will get to you but in the meantime, get
ready, Nashville Bike Week is coming and we are in it for the long
haul.”
While you are waiting for one Nashville Bike Week’s many officers,
attorneys, accountants or employees to answer your phone call you can
stare at the event’s website here. If you stare at it long enough, you might actually see it catch fire.
