It was 1987: at that time in Italy the-re was almost no biker meeting. Some small party was organized by the so called “Blue Jackets of Italy”, some meetings between local mo-torcyclists, but nothing else. This is the reason why the “Motârs” (dia-lect word for “biker”), a local biker group from Friuli (North-East Italy) decided to organize a new kind of party, more complete than tho-se existing in Italy. They wanted to create a meeting similar to those of North Europe (especially those or-ganized in Germany (German Bike Week, Biker Union Rally, Presi-dent Rally) and in the USA (Daytona and Sturgis).The beginning was very hard and during the first edition (1987) it rained almost all the time. On Fri-day there were no more than 250 people, but on Saturday 600 bikers arrived with more than 400 bikes, not many, but for a small village like Villanova (near San Daniele del Friuli) with only one thousand inha-bitants, the meeting was seen as a kind of invasion: lot of tents, tattoos and forks so long that nobody had ever seen them. For the biker mo-vement and theMotârs MC organizers it repre-sented really a great success. The

interest and the number of guests increased year after year, thanks to the engagement and the experien-ce of the organizers, who planed a large entertainment offer: lottery with wonderful prizes (a new mo-torcycle, helmets, leather clothes, etc.), flights to Daytona (for the Bike Show winners), exhibition stands, tattoo and airbrush conventions, helicopter flights, bungee jumping, sexy shows with erotic stars, bike games, unicycle races, the pre-sence of very important people of the sport or of the show business world, and above all the music with important and famous bands (Saxon, Ronnie James Dio, Kim Brown, Creedence Clearwater R., Status Quo, Uriah Heep, Tolo Mar-ton, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, Dr. Feelgood, Sweet, Alvin Lee, Mo-dena City Ramblers, Whitesnake, Motörhead, Soon, Rats, Yardbirds, Animals, Canned Heat, Wishbone Ash, Ten Years After, Trutz “Vi-king” Groth, Kim & The Cadillacs, Twin Dragons e Tony Martin (Black Sabbath), Andrea Braido, Uli Roth degli Scorpions, Jaime Dolce, Paul Di Anno (ex Iron Maiden), Pino Scotto, etc.).In 1990 there were 4.000 people, 13.000 in 1994 and more than

23.000 in 1997. A steady growing characterized by an atmosphere of friendship and solidarity that put together all European bikers in the name of passion for bikes, whate-ver the brand.In 1998 the organizers made the successful choice to change the place of the meeting, since it had become too small and not enough safe to welcome ten of thousand of people. The rally was moved from Villanova di San Daniele toOsoppo, in the Province of Udine, at about 10 km far from the previous location. The new area, the Rivel-lino Park, was very wide (about 280.000 square metres) full of tre-es. In 1999 there were more than 32.000 people with about 17.000 bikes of every brand. The biggest innovations of the 13th edition were the national Dragster Race and the international Stunt Men Cham-pionship. The organizers received a public prize from the Mayor of Osoppo and the nearest villages for the success of the event and for the common sense of the participants. But the Biker Fest isn’t only made by numbers and shows: it means even social commitment. Every year a large part of the earnings isallocated to poor people, to asso-

ciation and to no profit institutions.In 2001 Biker Fest moved back to San Daniele del Friuli in the handi-craft area, which was large enou-gh to welcome a large number of people but unfortunately without a natural shelter from the scorching sun. Bikers arrived even from the United States and from Australia to live the exciting atmosphere that you can feel at the Biker Fest. Ri-cky Angerer and the Show Action Group entertained the guests with their acrobatic performances. After some years of bureaucratic pro-blems in order to find a new area for the event, in 2004 it moved to Sutrio on the Monte Zoncolan (Udi-ne), a new wonderful area, where the rally took place until 2008. Then the Biker Fest was moved again to the great location of the Rivel-lino Park in Osoppo, where it still takes place nowadays. After the 25th edition took place in 2011 in the Parco del Revellino Osoppo, the great turning point of 2012, led the event in Lignano Sabbiadoro, changing the setting and totally reinvented the format. Now the Biker Fest uses an entire seaside town, and in just two years has been consecrated Daytona Italian.