By guest blogger Megan Swoyer
From July 1-8, Traverse City turned a bright shade of red for the 91st time as it rolled into its annual National Cherry Festival mode. More than 500,000 people attended one of Michigan’s biggest events. Life certainly is a, well, bowl of cherries for me as I was not only lucky enough to attend a few of these over the years, but also to sit down with Kat Paye, festival’s zippy, always-on-the-run executive director, in the throes of the 2017 extravaganza.
Here, Paye takes us on a festival tour, revealing the inside story of just what makes this the festival “cherry on top” when it comes to national-scale events:
Q: Tell us about your background.
A: I’ve been the director for eight months and before that was operations director for five years. I’ve been working with the Cherry Festival for 26 years, though, as both a staff member and volunteer. I grew up in Traverse City, and it seems everyone around here volunteers.
Q: What’s your favorite cherry?
A: I love fresh cherries, so the Montmorency is great. And I love dried cherries, cherry ice cream. Oh, I live 1 mile from MOOmers ice cream, which serves Cherries MOObilee. It’s a little dangerous!
Q: What are some of the events you’re extra excited about this year?
A: The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the Golden Knights (US. Army Parachute Team). Together that will make a more robust air show. Our parade is always fun.
Q: Events this size must require an enormous field of volunteers, yes?
A: Oh yes, we have 2,400 volunteers who put in more than 45,000 volunteer hours! This festival runs on only five full-time, paid staff members!
Q: So, then there’s a staff member who heads the volunteer efforts?
A: Yes, the position is called the operations director and it was my job before I became executive director. Whoever has that job must be able to handle multiple things at once and pull the golden lasso out of their desk.
Q: Weather must play an important role, and I bet could be a challenge for a festival like this?
A: If heavy rain was in the forecast during many of the days, I think that after I stopped crying and got out from under my desk, we’d go into a mode of doing the best we can. Concerts are rain or shine; in fact, many events are rain or shine and we have a lot of tented events, which is important.
Q: What’s a big challenge and how have you overcome it?
A: Parking is not an easy thing for downtown Traverse City or the festival. We have a free shuttle that runs from two different locations nonstop. We started using additional shuttles at peak hours after reviewing our ridership information. Those peak hours are typically during the fireworks and parades.
Q: It’s often tough to appease everyone, from seniors to children to millenials to you name it. Do you think you’ve got a good handle on this?
A: Well, yes, we have something for everyone. And for those millenials? I’d say something like the two Red White and Indigo Blue (a new hotel in town is called the Hotel Indigo) strolling wine tours would be attractive. It’s three tours at three different times. Also, food pairings with Leelanau Wine Trail wines is always popular for that crowd. We’re finding that many millenials are actually looking for things to do with their young kids. We’ve got that covered!
Q: Let’s get back to those volunteers you mentioned earlier, how do you attract so many? Is it something in the cherry juice?
A: Our volunteers are the best in the world. We even call ourselves — and we’ve trademarked this — Volunteer City USA. People in this region love to volunteer. They actually take vacation time off their jobs to volunteer!
Q: How does the festival operate, from a financial standpoint?
A: We have a 14-member board. Ninety percent of our activities are free. And we are a 501c3, which a lot of people don’t know. You can actually make donations to the festival for programs, such as the queen scholarships for young women, the orchard tours, things like that.
Q: What are some useful tips for those who may be considering starting a festival or big event like this in their town?
A: It works well when each event within the festival has its own event director to oversee its execution. My job, as overall executive director, is to continue to ensure that our mission, vision and values are executed. I also keep eyes on the budget, of course. My job is year-round and right now, it’s 24/7.An example, late last night I was on the phone with the pilots for the air show … It’s just the nature of the job.
But most important, to have a festival like this, you need to get behind the industry, whatever it might be. In our case it’s cherries. You need to rally with your growers and farmers and find out what they do. Our cherry industry and the cherry growers are what drives us. We stand behind them and they stand behind us. It all revolves around that.
Get Connected
National Cherry Festival | cherryfestival.org | 231.947.4230
Guest blogger Megan Swoyer is a Michigan Meetings + Events contributing writer.
