Stuart's Tales From Vegas
2010 Harley Davidson Dealer Summer Conference
Every year, Harley Davidson unveil their new model year range, clothing, helmets and collectibles to the world’s dealers at a conference somewhere in America. This year’s launch was supposed to be in Nashville, but Tennessee suffered some serious flooding and the event was moved to Las Vegas at very short notice. The only downside I could see to this was a couple of extra hours on a plane!
The conference itself lasts for three days: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We arrived at 10.30pm Monday night having spent 15 hours on planes. Back home it was 6.30am the following morning. Time travel is confusing on the tenses.
Bright and early Tuesday morning the conference started in earnest. Joining the enormous queues to get in it strikes you just how big a ‘family’ Harley Davidson is. There were literally thousands of us from all corners of the globe. I was seated in between dealers from Mexico, Argentina, Spain and the U.K.
The speakers (all Harley senior staff) all arrived on stage on one of the new CVOs after riding round the room and up on to the stage. The talks were honest, articulate, informative and encouraging (unlike most conferences I’ve been to), and led nicely into the U.K. and Ireland dealer meeting.
The afternoon was spent looking at the new bikes and everything that went with them. First impressions on the new bikes: The green CVO Street Glide is stunning, the new Nightster colours work really well, the Sportster Super Low will be a big seller, ABS on the Softails is a great idea (but no fly-by-wire Scratchy!) and it’ll be really interesting to see how the CVO Road Glide does in the U.K. No brand new models (yet) but some good tweaks and colour changes on what we already have.
The clothing is excellent for the upcoming seasons. A new military range looked really good, along with some new 360 degree reflective clothing that is unique to Harley. See them all at Sycamore soon!
The evening dealer party was themed Nash Vegas (you see what they did there?) and everyone was given a cowboy hat and Elvis sunglasses as we entered. Somehow only yours truly ended up wearing them from the Sycamore contingent. A country and western band played, and then Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley rounded out the evening. Peter nearly met an Elvis Presley ending on the evening’s buffet, but rather impressively performed the Heimlich manoeuvre on himself!
Wednesday was spent ordering everything. We were showed round the entire new clothing and parts range (which takes longer than you would think) and then filled in the order books. And this is just the Harley range. The officially licensed products took just as long!
The Europe and Asia dealers’ party that evening was held at the Moon and Playboy club (which isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds) off the strip, but did afford the second best view of downtown Las Vegas. The best view we’ll get to later.
Thursday morning was spent checking orders, making sure we’d ordered plenty of everything, and then ordering the periphery items (keyrings, lanyards, etc). After that, we’d done!
With conference duties concluded, we went to see the Las Vegas Harley Davidson dealership, reputedly the biggest in the world. I don’t know if this means in terms of sales or physical size, but it really is a big place, and sells roughly 2000 bikes a year, so maybe it’s both! One interesting aspect of the dealership is it has clothing shops all over the city, including most of the big hotels and the airport. Judging by the number of people in them, they must sell vast amounts of clothing.
After the dealership it was the Harley Davidson Café. Another huge building with a huge Harley bursting from its front. Inside there were Harley pinball machines, slot machines, bikes on chains moving round the roof, custom bikes, and everything Harley you could imagine. An excellent place for lunch!
With all things Harley concluded, we did manage to squeeze in a little sightseeing. We had dinner at the Stratosphere Tower at the end of the strip, where the restaurant is 900 feet in the air and is constantly revolving. The views of the city at night are breathtaking. There was even a couple getting married up there. For the lunatic fringe there was a rollercoaster at the very top of the tower, and for large sums of cash you could abseil down the outside!
Other notable mentions include firing M-16s and 9mm Berettas at the Las Vegas Gun Store, the outdoor display at Freemont Street and walking through casinos you only thought you’d ever see on television. Oh yes, and the heat. It was so hot it melted the soles off my shoes whilst walking!
All in all a wonderful trip that made you realise how big and how special Harley Davidson is. Roll on model year 2011!
To view photos from the trip please look in the gallery
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