Quality Control Helmet Show (In Review)

The Quality Control helmet show and MotoLady four year anniversary party went down this weekend, and if I do say so myself, was a great success.

This past weekend on Saturday, January 17th, Wolf and I threw our first collaborative event at the Soulful Garage & Gallery owned by our buddy ‘Dump Truck’ in Signal Hill. Wolf dubbed the event Quality Control, representing the high quality of many lesser-represented artists. The idea was to give six artists two Biltwell helmets, and have them sell one, and raffle the other off at the event. This lets the artists make something for their hard work, and gives onlookers a chance to own something in the show. Southern California has a ton of amazing motorcycle shows, so we wanted to do something a little bit different.

Our talented artists were:

During the week or so before the event, Wolf and I got crackin’ on making the display stands, trophies, and put together the last details for raffle, signage, and whatnot. The raffle had amazing prizes- one helmet from each artist, Icon 1000 certificates for a Fairlady jacket and Elsinore boots, Icon Airmada Spaztyk gold helmet, aluminum cafe racer tail and seat by Ian Halcott, a Lowbrow Customs Tsunami fender, and mechanics jacket and hat from the Mighty Motor. And soon to come, a follow up giveaway for those of you who couldn’t make it, thanks to my friends at Burly Brand.

Raffle ticket jars (made from classic Ball mason jars) were filled with little red tickets as people placed their bets on the item they really wanted.

The night was pleasantly busy- folks showed up early and hung out late. We had the lovely folks at Madhouse Kitchen come and made tacos for hungry party people, and our friend Brady took over the bar.

I rode Pandora from Ventura to the show, and parked her inside for people to get a good look at.

Bikes, bikes, bikes of all types!

Sometime around 8:30 the band, Back Alley Barbers, came and set up the last of their equipment in the upper loft area of the space.

They rocked, to say the least!

After the band was finished, we busted out our piñata full of adult goodies and motorcycle stuff.

There was a pair of Icon ladies gloves, Lowbrow fishscale grips, stickers, patches, pins, and more from all sorts of awesome motorcycle companies including Biltwell, Lowbrow Customs, Burly Brand, Dime City Cycles, Lossa, British Customs, Icon, Women’s Moto Exhibit, Zombie Performance, Cafe Racer TV, Twinline, and more. You’re wondering about the adult goodies, aren’t you. Well we included a ton of airplane size liquor bottles, and a box of Magnum condoms.

And while you can see above that we decided to start with a plastic bat, we decided to trade it out for something a little more dangerous.

Soon the piñata was no more, and people piled atop the prizes to claim their share.

After the piñata? RAFFLE TIME!

People were so excited to get new helmets and gear, but this guy who won Jason Prouty’s “Happy Little Bushes” was exuberant to say the least.

As for other highlights of the night for me, there were many. Friends from all over the country flew into town for this (and perhaps to enjoy the California sunshine as well). One of my favorite motoladies, the inspirational Sofi Tsingos of GT-Moto, got to pick up her ‘MotoLady of the Year‘ trophy in person!

Oh, and as for those trophies next to her… they were “Beauty Queen”, “Littlest Chicken Strips” and “Old School Cool”.

I got to see so many other friends, like my buddy Adrian from Utah who let me ride his RC51 on the salt flats years ago, and Jeff Yarrington who painted the Monster! Brittany Morrow from Rock the Gear stopped by, Wes from Threepence trekked all the way from Denver, and even my favorite sassy social media dude Joe from Icon came down from Portland. Our friend Shad came down from Bakersfield on his Sport Classic, Sash from toomuchtinamedia.com came by… it was a hoot!

Alicia from MotoLady and Brittany Morrow from Rock The Gear

Check out some photos from attendees and instagram photos tagged #QualityControlShow below. If you have any you’d like to send me, shoot a message through the contact page!