The second day of the Hollister Freedom Rally was marked by sunny skies and visitors lauding the wide range of things to do while bikers and vendors called foot traffic slow.
“It’s slower this year,” said Hollister resident Marcelo Orta, 62, a member of the locally based Top Hatters Motorcycle Club, as he helped manage the group’s booth a little before noon. “Maybe this evening we might get what we expected.”
But Candice Cooley, the marketing manager of the event, heard attendance on Friday was up 20 percent from the previous year, she said.
“The streets were definitely full yesterday,” the marketing manager said. “It was crazy.”
Hollister Police Chief David Westrick wrote that the crowd Saturday seemed “significantly busier” than last year in a text message to the Free Lance.
Bikers and visitors, meanwhile, praised the new Las Vegas-based promoter ConvExx for reviving the photo tower, delivering a meet and greet with stars from the Sons of Anarchy television series and bringing in late-night headliner entertainment by The Guess Who. But items on the schedule—including a tattoo contest and mechanical bull riding—were also canceled.
The tattoo contest originally planned for Friday afternoon was postponed to Saturday and then was canceled when there weren’t enough people signed up to participate, Cooley said. The mechanical bull also didn’t show.
“It didn’t make it,” she said. “The guy couldn’t get his insurance.”
Throughout the day, dozens of bikers riding orange, purple and black motorcycles buzzed across Highway 25 into normally sleepy San Benito County.
“There seems to be more—more music, more stuff to do,” said Hollister resident Beth Hurley, 51, as she exited the Veterans Memorial Building stage after posing for pictures with the Sons of Anarchy stars. “It’s nice that it’s back downtown.”
“It’s like one of the only things to do in Hollister,” added her daughter, Megan Hurley, 17.
Another popular attraction besides the celebrity visit was the photo tower. Milpitas resident Nancy Harris, 53, made a return visit to it Saturday afternoon.
“I thought it was awesome,” she said. “I wanted to take video compared to yesterday. There’s so many bikes.”
On Friday, Harris used her VIP pass—which cost $100 and included concert tickets, a lunch coupon and rally memorabilia—to get a bird’s-eye view of the event several times without paying $5 per visit. The passes were among several new features to the rally this year. It was “absolutely worth it,” Harris said.
“This year, I like it’s a lot better,” she said. “The promoters changed things and the town was a lot more welcoming.”
Along San Benito Street, hundreds of bikers revved their engines and sped each way on the city’s main street.
“We just got here but, yeah, it’s pretty good,” said Dave Boatright, a biker with a black leather jacket representing the “Soldiers for Jesus” motorcycle group.
“It’s good weather—sunny. The atmosphere is good,” said fellow biker Bob Fullerton from Southern California. “A lot of presence of the police but that’s okay. They gotta do their job.”
Santa Maria resident John Bordier, 70, and his friend Barbara Burns, 70, drove three and a half hours to reach tiny Hollister. They stood in front of the iconic rows of motorcycles parked on San Benito Street just before noon.
“Actually, we just got here about five minutes ago,” said Bordier, 70. “So far, it’s like it is every year: a madhouse.”
