Let's Ride: KORN, Camp Stories, and Comebacks at Arizona Bike Week

Summary

Lisa Cyr, one of the producers of Arizona Bike Week, walks Rachel through 25 years of running a five-day, 570-campsite festival at WestWorld. The standout stories: KORN flying in for one show only and dropping Jonathan Davis's signature mic stand crate at the airport, with a contractor who was already on site rebuilding it before the band went on, a classic rock guitarist refusing soundcheck over a missing stylus that turned out to be for a video game, and Marilyn Manson saving the headlining slot three weeks out when Five Finger Death Punch had to cancel.

Key takeaways

1. The crowd you didn't expect is sometimes the best — Lisa expected difficult bikers her first Bike Week. They lent her jackets when the weather dropped 30 degrees, tipped generously, and were collectively the kindest group she'd ever run an event for. Now Bike Week is her permanent home.
2. Bands handle real disasters like soundcheck — During Shinedown the power went out. They played it like nothing was wrong and rolled into it as if they'd planned it. The crew makes a disaster transparent. The audience never has to know it was real.
3. A cancelled headliner is a 30-day phone call — Three weeks before Bike Week, Five Finger Death Punch had an emergency. Marilyn Manson, freshly sober, was available. The replacement was better received than the original would have been. Cancellations are the door, not the wall.
4. The mic stand is the show — Jonathan Davis's mic stand is core to KORN's production. When the crate was dropped at the airport, Lisa's business partner had already given his contractor a free pass, and that contractor was on site to rebuild it. The last thing you want is anxiety walking on stage.
5. The rider is somebody's story — Cans of tuna nobody opens, baby coconuts with steel straws, a stylus for video games. A bass player from Blue Oyster Cult told Lisa the tuna came from someone's pet cat dying on the tour bus and never getting removed from the rider.

Transcript

00:00 With over 33 years in the mobile bartending and service industry, he is the guy who brings the party and the joy wherever he goes. She's a seasoned event planner and producer. Together we are Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters.

00:27 This is the Event Talk podcast with Dave and Rachel.

00:31 Hey everybody, thanks for joining us today for episode five of the Event Talk podcast. We're here with an amazing woman, super excited to hear all of her stories. Dave, do the intro and tell us about our mocktail. I'm happy — I have a good friend of mine here, Miss Lisa Cyr. She's one of the producers of Arizona Bike Week, and we've known each other a long time. We met when she was working at Montara, the special event venue at Westworld.

01:40 I had been a corporate meeting and event planner. I wanted to challenge myself, see what it was like to really make events happen instead of just telling other people what to do. One of my first clients wanted the guy with the margarita filled backpack. I went to the GM, asked who I called — Dave Foreman. We had a margarita man back then. Dave came out personally, talked me out of the backpack into the margarita machine, and said, "if you need anything, let me know." When Dave says that, he really means it. He invited me to my first Cool Off in Style and I met everybody in the industry.

03:25 Today's mocktail — cucumber mint lime simple syrup concentrate, all organic, from her garden. A non-alcohol cucumber mojito. Cheers. Yummy. Definitely cucumber. Mint. It's a really good summer drink. Of course you're welcome to add vodka. Mojito, not tequila. From the yard.

05:09 How many years have you been doing Bike Week? I started at Montara at Westworld in 2000. It was the first year Arizona Bike Week came to Westworld. It had been scattered before — first year somebody had trademarked the name and turned it into a really organized event. April was winding down the season for us — Barrett-Jackson, Arabian horse show, dozens of horse shows, plus we were doing about 200 events a year at Montara itself.

06:25 I was tired. Thousands of bikers coming and I'm not ready. To my surprise, they were collectively the best group of people I had ever done an event for. They were kind. The weather was terrible — temperature dropped 30 degrees. They were loaning me jackets and gloves. Tipping so generously. Just kind-hearted, fun-loving people. As soon as they left, I missed them. Everybody who worked at that event said, "can we do Bike Week every week?" Eventually it became my permanent home — became one of the owners, then president.

09:14 The event is always the first week in April. We have a month and a half wrapping up, and then immediately into ten and a half months of revamping the website. Camping is a big part. There are 300+ permanent pedestals at Westworld plus we add about 220. We end up with somewhere around 570 RV campsites and usually about 100 tent campers. About 3,000 people living on site for the whole week.

11:17 Vendors I saw — tattoo artists, Inked magazine. They come out with celebrity tattoo artists and set up a huge booth. Permanent jewelry vendors, IV drips, even Tasers. We have demo rides — Harley-Davidson, Indian, Kawasaki, Suzuki. Some of these bikes are bigger than a car. Seven different bike shows this year — Wednesday was the club bike show, vehiculos, a Chicano-community low-rider style. These guys have as much as $100,000 into their bikes. Customizing them more than they did when they bought it.

15:40 Friday we had the Rat's Hole Bike Show — longest running bike show in the country. They only go to the very biggest — Daytona, Sturgis. For the Rat's Hole to come to Arizona Bike Week was a big deal. Saturday we had Bikes & Bass — sound competition and custom bike show. Some of these sound systems are incredible.

18:43 Disasters. When Shinedown was here we lost power. They handled it like pros, threw it around as if they were doing soundcheck. The most important thing is to handle disasters and make them transparent to anybody who's there as a guest. When Korn arrived — they had flown into the country for one show only, going right back out. Their frontman Jonathan Davis has this amazing mic stand, big part of their production. When it came off the plane they dropped the crate it was in. He was beside himself — "we've got to have this rebuilt." Fortunately, my business partner had given free tickets to his contractor. We called him in. He was already on site. He went and rebuilt the mic stand crate. Last thing you want is a band going on stage with anxiety.

21:08 I remember when a classic rock band was getting ready to go out on stage for soundcheck and the lead guitar player was refusing to do soundcheck. Going on about where his stylus was. I'm thinking, has to do with his instrument. There's not a stylus here, I am not going out on that stage. He holds up his iPad — "do you mean a stylus?" "Yes." Evidently they wanted to play video games when they were done with soundcheck. I went to Best Buy and got him a stylus. They're sitting there playing video games. "When you go out there, don't tell them we're playing video games back here — tell them it's nothing but hookers and blow."

23:38 Biggest logistical challenge? Headlining concerts since 2006. Four-night concert series draws a whole separate audience — music fans plus the biker crowd. Five days, last year I think we had 28 bands. Most are self-sufficient. Battle of the bands competition — 120-140 submissions. This year we had a headliner cancel on us three weeks out — Five Finger Death Punch had an emergency. Somehow a miracle happened — Marilyn Manson was available. Everybody loved it. He got sober a few years ago, his show is incredible.

26:55 Covid — we got shut down by the city two weeks before we were supposed to open gates. Reschedule for October. We knew we wanted to fulfill our promises. We were at 25% of our normal attendance. Spray down porta-johns between each user, hand sanitizers everywhere, masks. But we did it — the first concert series since Covid started in the state. There was not one reported case of Covid as a result of our events.

30:10 Hospitality riders are always several pages — forget the production riders. I remember cans of tuna would be on it. Nobody ever opens them. I asked the bass player from Blue Oyster Cult — toured with them in the fall, with Queen in the spring. Danny Miranda, possibly the coolest guy. He said, "I'm guessing somebody had a pet cat on the tour bus at one point. The cat died and they never took it off." I stopped buying the cans of tuna because nobody ever touched them.

32:08 One band had a bottle of Tabasco, whole avocado, and cans of tuna. "Every day for lunch I eat half an avocado with a scoop of tuna drizzled with Tabasco." That's my lunch every day. Sometimes there are test items on the rider — like crew socks. "Are you guys making sock puppets?" The all-time weirdest single item was baby coconuts and steel straws. This particular band would plunge the straw into the baby coconuts and drink before going on stage. They're from California.

34:00 One tour manager says "I need 20 trash cans, one for glass, one for plastic." Okay, but when the guys come by they're going to throw everything into the same dumpster. I'll see you at Bike Week 2026 — April 8-12. Bringing me, Roland, and Megan. Thank you everybody for joining us online — we really appreciate it.

34:55 Thanks for tuning in to the Event Talk podcast — Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters where every event has a story. Until next time.