Buckle up, Philly.
After being locked away someplace dark for the last few years, the Mr. and Mrs. Philadelphia Leather Contest is ready to return in 2015 to heat up Valentine’s Day at The Bike Stop.
Jim Kiley-Zufelt, chair for the contest committee and Philadelphians M.C. captain, said the contest had lain dormant for the last half-dozen years because interest had waned.
“We went on hiatus after the 2008 contest,” he said. “The previous owner of the bar decided to give it a rest because they didn’t get enough contestants to really have a contest in 2009. We only had one man and one woman, and that doesn’t result in a very entertaining competition. So we put it on hold and the new owners decided they would let it sit until there was enough interest. Over the years, they heard enough people talking about it so they decided to bring it back. They reached out to the Philadelphians M.C. to see if we would be interested in helping them bring it back and co-producing the event with them.”
Kiley-Zufelt said the break seems to have regenerated interest in the leather contest.
“It was just one of those things where the community needed to recycle a little bit. There’s just been more people talking about it and wondering where it was. When something takes a break, absence makes the heart grow fonder. So people are excited about it again.”
The event will try to live up to that anticipation when it returns with new elements to keep the spectators entertained and engaged.
“There’s a whole new generation of people who have grown up watching ‘American Idol’ and seeing different types of competition,” Kiley-Zufelt said. “They’ve definitely got different attention spans. So we are borrowing things from pop culture. For example, we’re inserting audience voting into the competition. The audience votes will actually count toward selecting the winner. People will be able to vote on their smartphones and see the votes tallied on their screens during the performance.”
Kiley-Zufelt added that competition organizations are also hoping to appeal to community members outside The Bike Stop’s usual clientele.
“We are trying our best to promote it around the city and across many social-media networks,” he said. “There’s definitely more cross-pollination between bars. There’s the bear crowd that goes to The Bike Stop and also Tabu. And you’ve got other crowds that go to Tabu. We’re definitely trying to appeal to more than one sector of the community.”
The Mr. and Mrs. Philadelphia Leather Contest is free to attend and starts 8 p.m. Feb. 14 at The Bike Stop, third floor, 206 S. Quince St. For more information, visit www.phillyleathercontest.org.