2022 Mama Tried Motorcycle Show
Getting back on track with the annual schedule Milwaukee's Mama Tried show kicked off the 2022 season with a bang this March in the beautiful Eagles ballroom. The event always strives to showcase a very wide variety of motorcycles from every era and genre of the culture. Old bikes, new bikes, sportbikes, dirt bikes mini bikes, choppers and everything in between. You'll be hard pressed not to find a bike you love somewhere in that mix. The hardworking team of Scott Johnson and Warren Heir Jr continue to carry on the tradition of this show and grow it every year. We sat down with Scott Johnson to get his thoughts on the progression of the show as well as some insight on their Brazil branch out event.
Let's start off by talking about the next innovation for Mama Tried which is the Brazil show. So I know a lot of people have questions with what happened with it being canceled by the pandemic there originally and what is happening with it now. So could you give us a little run down of the premise to start?
Well it's the same focus and the same idea we just wanted to do a smaller Mama tried show showcasing what they are all doing down there with also a small flat out Friday because they have a really great racing down there. So we looking at all the bikes involved but they are putting it together with us down there.
So you are involved in the process but it's their curation locally?
Yes, just seeing what all these guys have is really cool. Builders, collectors, it's a much smaller pool of bikes but we wanted to be South America's take on choppers and race bikes.
Exactly well unknown to many people in the states Sao Paulo has a really cool scene for racing and custom motorcycles!
Yup there is a huge enthusiasm for motorcycle stuff down there and they're racing scene is so great, they kind of invented it in a petri dish of their own. Really the competition level is just crazy down there, like these guys are not messing around. We thought maybe we would go down and there would be only a few good guys building or racing but everybody down there is just killing it. There's like a whole bunch of of racetracks near Sao Paulo and they go a couple days a week and practice and practice and practice. They all have really positive attitudes for sure too, it's a community vibe everyone is helping each other it's just really cool
Do you feel like doing a show there yet promoting it in the States is in some ways helping expand the consciousness of motorcycling in different communities internationally? Like part of that also helps bring light to their scene while growing the Mama tried brand at the same time?
Yes definitely part of that that too is for us traveling has become such a huge thing that we want to do and we want to show people you can go do this internationally and go to shows and make really great friends and then invite them to come up here. When we 1st went down to South America we just went to be tourists and really immersed ourselves and we wanted to see what they were doing and building. Then we made a whole bunch of friends and then those friendships kept blossoming and then next thing you know we were borrowing each other's bikes and mailing parts to each other and its rad. In Brazil exporting and transporting bikes is next to impossible so we kind of kept It all there. We also really wanna do something like that in Indonesia cause there's a really cool bunch of people over building really great stuff there. So we want to go there and hang out with them and see what they are doing and invite them to come back here and so on. Maybe even get a shipping container full of bikes shipped over here. Let them race ....and have fun and be in the show. Then they meet people and make friends then people go back there and that whole cycle just continues to grow. The whole travel friendship thing is really a priority to us.
So let's just jump into the current Mama tried show which has been at 4 seperate locations around Milwaukee. How do you feel those locations have evolved over the years and what vibe do you guys like better. The ballroom vibe or the warehouse vibe?
I mean we all love the warehouse thing cause that's where we came from I think in a lot of ways we wanted it to feel like a warehouse party but the success kind of overtook us because then the City of Milwaukee just outlawed warehouse events.
Oh my God really?
Yeah and we were lucky to find this place but when the last warehouse got shut down we had nowhere to go.
You know I feel that's something that behind the scenes I really don't think a lot of people even knew? I think a lot of people really like to the old locations and probably never considered why you brought it here so I think that clears up any confusion.
I mean It didn't just affect us, it affected all the other businesses and flea markets and craft fairs even wedding receptions and all of a sudden the city was like we're done. No more temporary event permits for warehouses luckily the Eagles ballroom was available and they have been great to work with.
So do you feel like the ballroom is indefinitely the home of Mama Tried show now?
Yeah I mean for the foreseeable future. We dont wanna put it in a smaller venue and there's just not that much else in the city available you could even put a show like this in. I mean we have something like big trade show halls which is the only other thing and we don't wanna do something that sterile. The only other move would be to take it outdoors and we don't want to do that either.
Well I feel like having this show indoors in a cool environment is really what makes this show really neat. In a way it's like the indoor Born Free. I feel like this event has evolved to a certain point where it has a very certain vibe and people come here specifically for that.
Oh absolutely you know for us in the Winter us midwesterners sometimes need somewhere indoor to go and hang out, plus the summers are just too full of other events and stuff. Everything just gets crammed altogether. I mean as a photographer you know what it's like, in the summer every weekend there's like 18 different things happening and there really isn't room for us then anyway.
So just to clear this up for our readers we wanna clarify, the reasoning for doing a December and then March show is to get back on track for having it annually in March again and even maybe the year after that as well.
Yup exactly, December had to happen in 2021 to get back on track for them to have the March dates for 2022. So there is no Daytona conflicts next year either. When covid happened we had some scheduling conflicts with the Fiserv forum and even the NBA schedule so we had to take these dates they had. They were like "OK here are the dates, you gotta choose a year and a 1/2 ahead of time otherwise there is just like nothing else you can do" which we knew it kind of overlapped Daytona a little bit but we had no choice.
Well do you feel like doing it like this spaced out to where people could pick the time they wanted to go and do you feel like the attendance was up to par with the last December show?
Yeah we got the numbers back and I think we actually had more people at this one than the December one....I did not anticipate that at all
So growing the show has taken a lot of support from the motorcycle community especially from the sponsors. How do you feel that support has helped build on the foundation of the show.
Well it's essential to our success completely. I feel like initially the show really got off the ground because of the sponsors and when they brought a film crew or photographer and document it themselves to put out. Our own videos and coverage is not always the most popular. Lowbrow, chopcult, Old Bike Barn, bell helmets and on and on. For us it sometimes takes an outside perspective to have others say this is what we are doing that works or I'd cool. At the end of the day we aren't the smartest guys in the room and those sponsors are essential because of also the financial stability they give us but also the way they show us through their lens though is just super important
Well I know more boots on the ground helps quite a bit too. I know Bear personally as well as the team from Old Bike Barn has helped out alot with Flat Out Friday setup to marketing and even content creation.
Exactly and we've learned so much from them. They've been helping with some tips on how to market and so I mean everything that we've learned in that aspect we learned from our sponsors. So it's not just the financial stability aspect but also the knowledge, wisdom and such. It's been completely essential to our success 100%.
And in a very community vibe as well.
Yea.
So just giving a little background on you personally you have quite a lot of experience in the restaurant and bar industry, how do you feel that has helped with the success of the show?
Well feel it helped sort of in the beginning especially in the warehouse days I was familiar with the process for getting permits, liquor licenses and ordering beer and getting the show staffed which really helped out a lot obviously we've been having the pre party at Fuel Cafe and many other restaurants were involved too. Other than that there's not a ton of crossover but I've been in the realm for so long you know part of this is all the different restaurants and places connected to the event too.
You know I feel like having all these different places to go while here for the event really makes it so that people have a lot of options and you guys have always done great with being accommodating. I mean you are coming to Mama tried show but it's really like you are getting to enjoy all of these finer points of Milwaukee in the process.
We even built this app that we tried to put all of that stuff on, which I feel like we don't even do enough to promote the app because a lot of work went into it and its really great.
Yeah the app was really impressive and informative and I know it even helped me navigate some things as well.
We really want to give people an experience I mean it's one thing where when I would go to motorcycle shows I wouldn't want to be at the shows all the time go to see some museums go to some dinner then go to the show that's all good but if you're at the show all day some people just get overwhelmed. I mean you've been doing this a long time, you know, it's a little overwhelming just like spending an entire day at a show. We want people to have good options to enjoy alongside the show.
Well that also has to have given the show a better flow too cuz then you don't have 2000 people crammed into the same room all at once
Exactly. It's like just breeze in, have fun, get a taste for it and then go out with some friends.
So a little more backstory on you, you have a bit of experience in the racing industry. How do you feel your history with racing benefits your role at the show?
Well I already knew a lot of people in the racing community and that was a big part of the idea for the show because we felt like the racing community used to be so isolated from the chopper community. It's like the people in both groups were really rad but just didn't really intermix. So we really wanted to see if we could get them all in the same room. Which I feel like there's definitely been some success with that. There have been a lot of racing people that have gone on to build cool choppers and vice versa. Also the other thing, unless you are in the pits at a flat track or a hill climb they don't really allow people to get up close to all these bikes. It's rare to get to see that kinda stuff and racing people build bikes to race not to show. They seriously don't care if anyone wants to see it. Most times they build it to be fast and for themselves. In the beginning it was hard because we would approach a lot of guys and say hey do you want to be in the show and they would be like why?
Hahaa. That's totally understandable. I loved how even some of the bikes still had mud and dirt from the track.
Yeah it took a lot of convincing for some guys and we would we like, hey we really want this to be on display. Which some people just don't wanna mess with it at all for various reasons like taking it out of the race circuit or whatever. Anyway, I just think having these bikes out here has helped foster like a new community and I really like where its headed now. There are a lot of younger people coming into motorcycling too which I think is essential to Flat out Friday and Mama tried. Coming in with their enthusiasm and their ideas and their take on the culture. Seeing that is just so great. It even goes back to the international thing too. We wanna see what Brazilians take on motorcycle culture is, or the take on Indonesian culture. Then go party with them and get ideas and give ideas and the cycle goes round and round. It's this swirl of ideas and I feel like, right now, in motorcycling it's super important to continue to grow.
Well we couldn't agree more.
Photos and words by Mike Vandegriff
Let's start off by talking about the next innovation for Mama Tried which is the Brazil show. So I know a lot of people have questions with what happened with it being canceled by the pandemic there originally and what is happening with it now. So could you give us a little run down of the premise to start?
Well it's the same focus and the same idea we just wanted to do a smaller Mama tried show showcasing what they are all doing down there with also a small flat out Friday because they have a really great racing down there. So we looking at all the bikes involved but they are putting it together with us down there.
So you are involved in the process but it's their curation locally?
Yes, just seeing what all these guys have is really cool. Builders, collectors, it's a much smaller pool of bikes but we wanted to be South America's take on choppers and race bikes.
Exactly well unknown to many people in the states Sao Paulo has a really cool scene for racing and custom motorcycles!
Yup there is a huge enthusiasm for motorcycle stuff down there and they're racing scene is so great, they kind of invented it in a petri dish of their own. Really the competition level is just crazy down there, like these guys are not messing around. We thought maybe we would go down and there would be only a few good guys building or racing but everybody down there is just killing it. There's like a whole bunch of of racetracks near Sao Paulo and they go a couple days a week and practice and practice and practice. They all have really positive attitudes for sure too, it's a community vibe everyone is helping each other it's just really cool
Do you feel like doing a show there yet promoting it in the States is in some ways helping expand the consciousness of motorcycling in different communities internationally? Like part of that also helps bring light to their scene while growing the Mama tried brand at the same time?
Yes definitely part of that that too is for us traveling has become such a huge thing that we want to do and we want to show people you can go do this internationally and go to shows and make really great friends and then invite them to come up here. When we 1st went down to South America we just went to be tourists and really immersed ourselves and we wanted to see what they were doing and building. Then we made a whole bunch of friends and then those friendships kept blossoming and then next thing you know we were borrowing each other's bikes and mailing parts to each other and its rad. In Brazil exporting and transporting bikes is next to impossible so we kind of kept It all there. We also really wanna do something like that in Indonesia cause there's a really cool bunch of people over building really great stuff there. So we want to go there and hang out with them and see what they are doing and invite them to come back here and so on. Maybe even get a shipping container full of bikes shipped over here. Let them race ....and have fun and be in the show. Then they meet people and make friends then people go back there and that whole cycle just continues to grow. The whole travel friendship thing is really a priority to us.
So let's just jump into the current Mama tried show which has been at 4 seperate locations around Milwaukee. How do you feel those locations have evolved over the years and what vibe do you guys like better. The ballroom vibe or the warehouse vibe?
I mean we all love the warehouse thing cause that's where we came from I think in a lot of ways we wanted it to feel like a warehouse party but the success kind of overtook us because then the City of Milwaukee just outlawed warehouse events.
Oh my God really?
Yeah and we were lucky to find this place but when the last warehouse got shut down we had nowhere to go.
You know I feel that's something that behind the scenes I really don't think a lot of people even knew? I think a lot of people really like to the old locations and probably never considered why you brought it here so I think that clears up any confusion.
I mean It didn't just affect us, it affected all the other businesses and flea markets and craft fairs even wedding receptions and all of a sudden the city was like we're done. No more temporary event permits for warehouses luckily the Eagles ballroom was available and they have been great to work with.
So do you feel like the ballroom is indefinitely the home of Mama Tried show now?
Yeah I mean for the foreseeable future. We dont wanna put it in a smaller venue and there's just not that much else in the city available you could even put a show like this in. I mean we have something like big trade show halls which is the only other thing and we don't wanna do something that sterile. The only other move would be to take it outdoors and we don't want to do that either.
Well I feel like having this show indoors in a cool environment is really what makes this show really neat. In a way it's like the indoor Born Free. I feel like this event has evolved to a certain point where it has a very certain vibe and people come here specifically for that.
Oh absolutely you know for us in the Winter us midwesterners sometimes need somewhere indoor to go and hang out, plus the summers are just too full of other events and stuff. Everything just gets crammed altogether. I mean as a photographer you know what it's like, in the summer every weekend there's like 18 different things happening and there really isn't room for us then anyway.
So just to clear this up for our readers we wanna clarify, the reasoning for doing a December and then March show is to get back on track for having it annually in March again and even maybe the year after that as well.
Yup exactly, December had to happen in 2021 to get back on track for them to have the March dates for 2022. So there is no Daytona conflicts next year either. When covid happened we had some scheduling conflicts with the Fiserv forum and even the NBA schedule so we had to take these dates they had. They were like "OK here are the dates, you gotta choose a year and a 1/2 ahead of time otherwise there is just like nothing else you can do" which we knew it kind of overlapped Daytona a little bit but we had no choice.
Well do you feel like doing it like this spaced out to where people could pick the time they wanted to go and do you feel like the attendance was up to par with the last December show?
Yeah we got the numbers back and I think we actually had more people at this one than the December one....I did not anticipate that at all
So growing the show has taken a lot of support from the motorcycle community especially from the sponsors. How do you feel that support has helped build on the foundation of the show.
Well it's essential to our success completely. I feel like initially the show really got off the ground because of the sponsors and when they brought a film crew or photographer and document it themselves to put out. Our own videos and coverage is not always the most popular. Lowbrow, chopcult, Old Bike Barn, bell helmets and on and on. For us it sometimes takes an outside perspective to have others say this is what we are doing that works or I'd cool. At the end of the day we aren't the smartest guys in the room and those sponsors are essential because of also the financial stability they give us but also the way they show us through their lens though is just super important
Well I know more boots on the ground helps quite a bit too. I know Bear personally as well as the team from Old Bike Barn has helped out alot with Flat Out Friday setup to marketing and even content creation.
Exactly and we've learned so much from them. They've been helping with some tips on how to market and so I mean everything that we've learned in that aspect we learned from our sponsors. So it's not just the financial stability aspect but also the knowledge, wisdom and such. It's been completely essential to our success 100%.
And in a very community vibe as well.
Yea.
So just giving a little background on you personally you have quite a lot of experience in the restaurant and bar industry, how do you feel that has helped with the success of the show?
Well feel it helped sort of in the beginning especially in the warehouse days I was familiar with the process for getting permits, liquor licenses and ordering beer and getting the show staffed which really helped out a lot obviously we've been having the pre party at Fuel Cafe and many other restaurants were involved too. Other than that there's not a ton of crossover but I've been in the realm for so long you know part of this is all the different restaurants and places connected to the event too.
You know I feel like having all these different places to go while here for the event really makes it so that people have a lot of options and you guys have always done great with being accommodating. I mean you are coming to Mama tried show but it's really like you are getting to enjoy all of these finer points of Milwaukee in the process.
We even built this app that we tried to put all of that stuff on, which I feel like we don't even do enough to promote the app because a lot of work went into it and its really great.
Yeah the app was really impressive and informative and I know it even helped me navigate some things as well.
We really want to give people an experience I mean it's one thing where when I would go to motorcycle shows I wouldn't want to be at the shows all the time go to see some museums go to some dinner then go to the show that's all good but if you're at the show all day some people just get overwhelmed. I mean you've been doing this a long time, you know, it's a little overwhelming just like spending an entire day at a show. We want people to have good options to enjoy alongside the show.
Well that also has to have given the show a better flow too cuz then you don't have 2000 people crammed into the same room all at once
Exactly. It's like just breeze in, have fun, get a taste for it and then go out with some friends.
So a little more backstory on you, you have a bit of experience in the racing industry. How do you feel your history with racing benefits your role at the show?
Well I already knew a lot of people in the racing community and that was a big part of the idea for the show because we felt like the racing community used to be so isolated from the chopper community. It's like the people in both groups were really rad but just didn't really intermix. So we really wanted to see if we could get them all in the same room. Which I feel like there's definitely been some success with that. There have been a lot of racing people that have gone on to build cool choppers and vice versa. Also the other thing, unless you are in the pits at a flat track or a hill climb they don't really allow people to get up close to all these bikes. It's rare to get to see that kinda stuff and racing people build bikes to race not to show. They seriously don't care if anyone wants to see it. Most times they build it to be fast and for themselves. In the beginning it was hard because we would approach a lot of guys and say hey do you want to be in the show and they would be like why?
Hahaa. That's totally understandable. I loved how even some of the bikes still had mud and dirt from the track.
Yeah it took a lot of convincing for some guys and we would we like, hey we really want this to be on display. Which some people just don't wanna mess with it at all for various reasons like taking it out of the race circuit or whatever. Anyway, I just think having these bikes out here has helped foster like a new community and I really like where its headed now. There are a lot of younger people coming into motorcycling too which I think is essential to Flat out Friday and Mama tried. Coming in with their enthusiasm and their ideas and their take on the culture. Seeing that is just so great. It even goes back to the international thing too. We wanna see what Brazilians take on motorcycle culture is, or the take on Indonesian culture. Then go party with them and get ideas and give ideas and the cycle goes round and round. It's this swirl of ideas and I feel like, right now, in motorcycling it's super important to continue to grow.
Well we couldn't agree more.
Photos and words by Mike Vandegriff