Many big events have been canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, but South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is still on.
The annual gathering in Sturgis, South Dakota, will last from Aug. 7-16 and is expected to bring in more than 250,000 people, raising concerns among public officials worried about an unmanageable uptick in COVID-19 cases.
Sturgis City Council voted to proceed with the event because of pressure from businesses despite more than 60% of residents saying in a survey they believe the rally should be postponed.
“This is a huge, foolish mistake to make to host the rally this year,” Sturgis resident Linda Chaplin told the City Council at a June meeting. “The government of Sturgis needs to care most for its citizens.”
Though organizers expect the event to bring in only half of its usual number of attendees due to travel restrictions from Canada and other places, some people think this year’s rally could be the biggest one yet, given people’s frustration over economic lockdowns meant to stop the spread of the virus.
“It’s the biggest single event that’s going on in the United States that didn’t get canceled,” said Rod Woodruff, who operates the campground and concert venue Buffalo Chip. “A lot of people think it’s going to be bigger than ever.”
Woodruff told the Associated Press he felt he had little choice but to take part in the rally because he employs hundreds of people in August and a smaller, full-time staff.
After the rally, the city normally weighs all the trash generated to estimate how many people showed up. This year, the city intends to also conduct mass coronavirus testing to see if people brought the virus into the city of about 7,000 residents.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem recently told Fox News host Laura Ingraham her state is proud to host the rally, describing it as a takeback of freedoms revoked by public health restrictions during the pandemic.
“We are allowing them to take control of our country in a way that we haven’t seen before, so we need a few people to stand up, read our history, talk about the importance of our Constitution and the fact that these governors need to recognize that they need to uphold those freedoms that we hold so dear,” Noem said.
Noem is one of a handful of governors who left her state open throughout the pandemic.
South Dakota has had slightly more than 9,000 cases of COVID-19 and about 140 deaths tied to the virus.