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  • Boats float in West Grand Traverse Bay during the National Cherry Festival. Record-Eagle/Keith King

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July 17, 2012

Cherry Festival feedback 'positive'

By Bill O'Brien bobrien@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Tom Garrisi kept people talking during the National Cherry Festival's eight-day run. When the dust cleared, there wasn't much else to be said.

Garrisi, a long-time festival volunteer in radio communications, on Monday quietly packed his equipment outside the festival's communications tent along Grandview Parkway.

Garrisi's team coordinated communications and logistics with the help of 120 portable radios used by festival officials, organizers and volunteers. And with no major glitches, he considered this year a success.

"I think it went real well," Garrisi said. "From the communications side of things, everything was good."

Festival Executive Director Trevor Tkach said he won't have specific numbers on whether this year's festival finished with a profit until late August. But the first-year boss said he received "positive feedback" from festival vendors and sponsors.

High-profile events, including the bayside music stage and annual festival road race, drew strong turnouts, he said, and the festival beer tent reported strong attendance throughout the week.

"Operationally, things ran very smoothly," Tkach said.

Weather was the festival's biggest ally. Sunny skies and warm temperatures dominated festival week.

"In this business, weather's very important," he said.

Some area businesses said festival week boosted their bottom line. Rob Robinson, director of operations for Summerside Properties, which operates several area motels, said the chain's 1,600 room nights were at more than 99 percent capacity during the festival. Robinson said occupancy was up 10 to 15 percent from last year's Cherry Festival.

"It was a great week ... people wanted to get out and move around," Robinson said. "That's kind of been the story for the whole month of July."

Robinson said the festival generates plenty of business. But he suspects other factors included an overlap with the Horse Shows by the Bay equestrian event in Acme Township, and a continued flood of visitors to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore park.

Others were less impressed with festival week. Nancy Freund, owner of Little Bohemia bar and restaurant on West Front Street, said her business slipped, compared to last year.

"It was fair; it wasn't great," she said. "The Cherry Festival is not a real huge draw for us; people tend to stay downtown in the food court."

Freund also sees more activity when the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels headline the festival. The Blue Angels missed this year's show for a prior commitment.

"I'll be glad when they're back," she said.

Paul Barbas, owner of Opa! Coney and Grill that has operated in the festival's food court for several years, said he noted less activity this year.

"It was a good week," Barbas said. "But foot traffic, from our perspective, was down a bit."

Festival week isn't just about making money, Barbas said. It gives him a break from the grind of running two local restaurants and is a chance to greet his customers in a different setting.

"If at the end of week we walk away with a little bit of something, we're happy with it," he said.

Tkach suspects the festival and its vendors continue to see the affect of state and national recessions. Cautious festival-goers may not be spending like they had in the past.

"It seems as though people are managing their money differently," he said. "Consumer buying habits are changing, and we have to respond to it."

There was barely a trace left of the festival by midday Monday at the city Open Space, where intern Devin Gowen joined a handful of festival volunteers and staffers who toted away the last of the equipment, supplies and trash and raked at the brown, parched grass.

Working the festival was Gowen's last step in securing a marketing degree at Southern New Hampshire University.

Temperatures pushed past 90 degrees during Monday's cleanup, but Gowen said it still seemed like a break after a week when her work day started at 6:30 a.m. and didn't end until after 11 p.m.

"This was an experience that was more than I would have ever imagined," she said. "And I still loved it."

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