One thing is for sure, the term “One-Percenter” was coined as a direct result of the 1947 non-riot as described by LIFE Magazine’s July 27, 1947 edition. The American Motorcyclist Association quickly explained that 99% of the bikers are decent, responsible bikers, but only 1% were troublemakers. The die was cast and the diamond 1% patch was born for better or worse.

 

    The celebration from 1997 to 2009 had a bunch of problems that lead to its cancelation. In 2013, the Hollister Rally was a successful event. Jump forward to Independence Day Weekend 2014 celebration and there is a vendor mall, beer gardens, food court, music, poker run, and tire-kicking party under the watchful lens of Hollister’s brand new camera surveillance system. The $300,000 setup was bought in part for the rally partially by the huge fee the promoter had to pay for police protection.

 

   Let’s get something straight right off. There were a lot of attendees. How many? Nobody knows, everything is a guesstimating estimate. We know that most of the bikes were Harley- Davidsons of which most were black baggers and most Harley riders were grey beards. The organizer wanted a large attendance number to justify what sponsors pay for exposure. The cops wanted large numbers to justify their extra resources. Unless everybody has to enter through a gate, which they don’t, nobody knows. Let’s just say there were many thousands of attendees and leave it at that.

 

    Between the downtown event and Corbin’s, another venue was set up at the Indian/Honda/Victory dealer where they had a bar called “The Wild One Saloon” and two factory demo trucks. Kind of a stupid combination if you ask me depending in what order you did a demo and a beer.

 

   Between starting on the morning of the 4th and the close down in the PM of the 6^th, the combo music festival, motorcycle rally, food court, and vendor mall brought out the lookieloos, wannabes, wishtheyweres, thoughttheyweres, and gladtheyweren’ts together with a lot of motorcyclists for a massive party on the streets of downtown Hollister, California, USA. The event was managed by English Mark with his Irish wife, Yvonne, for the Hollister Downtown Association. They put on their second successful “The Hollister Rally” with help from the people of Hollister. Let’s do it again next year.