Joe Imbriaco, the general manager of the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, said he worked on attracting a bull riding tour to Bangor for two years.
His efforts will come to fruition at 8 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Saturday when the Professional Bull Riders’ BlueDEF Tour comes to Bangor.
“I had previously worked at buildings in South Carolina and Virginia where they had bull riding,” Imbriaco said. “It’s a great event. It’s nonstop action. Riders are on bulls for eight seconds and it can be a long eight seconds.”
In addition to it being a “high-energy sport,” Imbriaco noted that there is a strong agricultural environment in Maine.
“People here appreciate animals and competition,” he said.
His instincts were accurate, as the two nights are already sold out.
Devin Vaughn, the marketing manager for the tour, said they may be able to “open up some partially obstructed view seats in the next couple of days.”
Vaughn said the tour “loves going to places we’ve never been before” in order to generate new fans.
“We had been trying to get to Bangor and it’s very exciting that we’re going there this weekend. Hopefully, it will be a real good show and it will turn into an annual thing,” Vaughn said.
“People in Maine are looking forward to seeing some of the best bull riders in the world,” he added.
“We hoped we’d get a great response and we have,” said Imbriaco. “We’re ecstatic with the response. Hopefully, we’ll have them back in the future.”
In the competition, there will be 35 riders who will mount a bull and will try to stay on the bucking animal for eight seconds. If the rider gets tossed off before the eight seconds, he doesn’t receive a score. If he stays on, the rider and the bull will be given a score by two judges.
On Saturday night, each rider’s two scores will be tallied and the top 10 will quality for the finals, where they will get one more ride.
The riders will be vying for a total purse of $20,000 according to Vaughn.
“The maximum score is 100 points and that’s never been done before. Anything above 90 is an excellent ride,” Vaughn explained. “Half the score is based on the rider and the other half is based on the bull.”
Vaughn said the difficulty of the ride is based on how fast the bull bucks and how much it changes direction and that is one of the prime criteria in the judging of the ride.
If a bull is passive, they will do the ride again.
This will be the 14th stop on the Blue DEF tour.
Seventy tons of dirt are brought in for a PBR event every weekend, as are over 50 bulls. The average bull weighs 1,700-2,000 pounds and it will take a crew of 30 people 36 hours to set up the facility for the competition.
Protective film and plastic have been placed over the air filtration systems to prevent the dirt from spreading, according to Imbriaco.
Two of the bull riders to watch will be Sean Willingham of Somerville, Georgia, and Australian Beau Willis, according to Vaughn.
Willingham has been a finalist in the Built Ford Tough Series tour, which is the highest-level tour.
Willis has competed in the Australian bull riding tour.
Vaughn said Matt Merritt will provide entertainment during the shows and she said he does an outstanding job.