Rising compliance costs may put the brakes permanently on the Brass Monkey motorcycle rally. The future of the rally, which has been held for the past 35 years at Oturehua over Queens Birthday Weekend, is uncertain.
“We’ll be getting together over the next week or so for the debriefing of this year’s event and one of the things we’ll consider is whether we’ll continue on with it” organising committee member John Willems said yesterday.
The event, run by a sub-committee of the Otago Motorcycle Club, attracted 1300 people this year.
Mr Willems said the rising costs included liquor licensing fees and requirements, hiring security guards and paying to have a St John ambulance officer on site.
“I don’t begrudge any of that, especially the St John’s person – and they have rising costs too – but we need to look at what it costs us to stage this event.”
“We’re a volunteer group and we’re trying to keep the entry fee at a reasonable level but we need to take a closer look at our costs and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of money to run a rally like this.”
The decision would not be made lightly.
“We’ll be sitting down with everyone, including the local community, to discuss it before making any decision and there’s quite a few channels to go through first. Other options will be considered too, such as possibly only holding it every second year,” Mr Willems said.
“My gut feeling is that it will continue on. Certainly the feedback we had from riders at the weekend was that they wanted it to carry on.”
Planning for the following year’s rally began at least six months ahead, he said.
From: http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/344503/brass-monkey-consider-future
Whilst I understand the concern about rising compliance costs – I feel it would be a shame were this significant (iconic?) event to disappear
That would be a bummer. Just done my 20th, too.
PC Bullshit! Jeez it’s frustrating!
Well shutting down the Brass Monkey has to be a Win Win situation, how? for a start the PC brigade, the anti Motorcycle brigade, the Police, A.C.C. will be celebrating, politicians will be smiling with glee, motorcyclist partners mother in law’s will be saying about time. Well I just bloody wont comply and watch rugby instead, motorcycling is my preferred outlet to escape our cotton wool society. Hey, I am not against safety, I wear dam fluro vest when riding but.,,, 17 years at the monkey and dozens of rally’s and never seen any one get feisty. oh by the way, I was being sarcastic when I started this rant with a” win win situation”. even tho my mother used to say “sarcasm is the lowest form of whit” and “swearing was a sign of poor vocabulary”. *^&^&^%$#@#* there.
Well I wish the committee the very best and manage to keep it going, perhaps we may have to compromise a bit somewhere and make a couple of changes??
Next year could be last for Brass Monkey Motorcycle Rally
The future of the Brass Monkey motorcycle rally is again looking doubtful as organisers have stated that there will be a rally next year to mark it’s 40th anniversary, but there are currently no plans to continue beyond that.
Read the full article on stuff.co.nz
If you haven’t heard already, the 40th Brass Monkey this year will also be the last.
More info at: http://www.brassmonkeyrally.org.nz/
The owner of the land the Brass Monkey rally is held on has said he’d like to have a new event at the site to continue use of the land and infrastructure in place. The new event may or may not be motorcycle focused.
Read more on the Otago Daily Times website: https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/successor-considered-brass-monkey-ends
I hope everyone heading down to the final Brass Monkey enjoys it, friends who live locally said they received the first snow fall of the winter season this morning.