The Cherry Festival’s Changing Face

Jason Stewart Anthropology 438 – Urban Studies

Professor Dmanini Partridge GSI Hilary Fineman

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INTRODUCTION

There is a reason that the area in and around Northern Michigan is known as “The

Cherry Capital of the World”. Traverse City, an urban center within this region nestled

along the Lake Michigan shoreline, is home to an annual event that celebrates the

completion of the cherry harvest. This event is known throughout Michigan as the Cherry

Festival. For nearly a century locals and out-of-state residents alike have come to

participate in the variety of contests, parades and concerts the festival has to offer. Of

course, the focus of the Cherry Festival is the cherries and the cherry industry. Local

cherry farmers bring the best of their crops to the festival to present to potential

individual and corporate buyers. However a recent slump in the cherry production has

hurt farmers’ presence at the festival.1 Tart cherry production has steeply declined since

the late 1990s due to unseasonably cold weather during the spring time months.2 If cherry

buds are frozen during the blossoming period the blossom can not be pollinated which

results in the absence of the fruit during the harvesting season. The wavering cherry

production, however, has not had a significant impact on the popularity of the Cherry

Festival. In 2002 the tart cherry crop was devastated by a string of days during which the

high temperature was below freezing. Farmers were only able to produce a minute

percentage of their previous years’ crop.3 In that same year, the Cherry Festival drew

record crowds and enjoyed one of the most financially beneficial years to date.4 This

would seem unexpected since the Cherry Festival is the product of the need of local

cherry growers to sell cherries. From this situation arises a question: why does the cherry

1 Miller, 2005 2 Karbowski, 2005 3 Steele, 2002 4 Warren, 2002

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festival persist when the cherry crop that supports it fails? The goal of this essay is to

analyze the evolution of the Cherry Festival, as it pertains to the aforementioned

question, in terms of the changing local economy of Traverse City and the city’s use of

public space to facilitate this event.

THE CHERRY FESTIVAL

Cherries are very difficult fruits to grow as a specific type of climate is needed to

cultivate them. Northern Michigan, and more specifically the Grand Traverse peninsula,

proved to be ideal for growing cherries as Lake Michigan tempers Arctic winds in the

winter and cools the orchards in summer, providing the ideal climate for cherry growth.

The notion of celebrating the end of the cherry harvest had been around for quite some

time before the formation of the Cherry Festival. Originally a ceremony entitled “The

Blessing of the Blossoms” marked the completion of the cherry harvest. During this

ceremony, people from around the county would come to dance the “cherry-trot”,

participate in the cherry pie eating and pit spitting contests, and purchase cherries, cherry

jams, sauces, juices and preserves. “The Blessing of the Blossoms” grew to be so popular

that in 1926 Traverse City decided to formalize the event. They named it the Cherry

Festival.

Initially, the Cherry Festival was only a one or two day event, depending on the

weather, but it has now become a week long celebration in July that draws over half a

million people into Traverse City. The center of the festival is located near the center of

the city in an area known as the Open Space.5 This area consists of a wide open, grassy

lawn and a flowerbed commemorating “The National Cherry Festival” by arranging the

flowers in such a way that when they bloom they create a fitting mosaic image. The Open 5 See figure 1

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Space is a publicly owned area that provides the main physical space for Cherry Festival

events. The events include such things as daily concerts, cherry pit-spitting and the cherry

queen pageant. In addition to events, the Open Space is the primary location for the

various vendors that participate in the Cherry Festival. Close to twenty local restaurants

assemble their booths in the outdoor food court, the corporate sponsor for the year is

positioned adjacent to the food court, and a relatively small tent area for sellers of cherry

products is located across from the food court. Additionally, tents housing representatives

from various community service programs are located within the Open Space.

TRAVERSE CITY’S ECONOMY

The retail industry in Grand Traverse County accounts for a significant

percentage of the area’s economy.6 Traverse City, with its abundance of hospitality

oriented businesses and 20,000+ population, caters to tourists that come to take advantage

of the cities resources and amenities. The shoreline of Traverse City is dotted with hotels,

motels and restaurants. This, along with the fifty or more restaurants within the city

limits, makes it easy to see how Traverse City is an accommodating tourist destination.

Since the Cherry Festival is such a significant event for Traverse City, it would be

expected that many local jobs would be agriculture related but this is not the case. Less

than 1.7% of people in Grand Traverse County are employed by the agricultural

industry.7 This is interesting because the Grand Traverse County Convention and Visitors

Bureau states that 70-75% of the world’s cherries come from this small area of Northern

Michigan.8 1.7% of Grand Traverse County’s population of 87,000 is 1,479; it’s

6 2000 census information 7 2000 census, economic characteristics information 8 Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau website, 2005: http://www.mytraversecity.com/facts/page.cfm?articleID=41

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incredible to think that an industry of just under 1,500 people is responsible for three

quarters of the world’s cherry production.

The cherry industry may have been responsible for bringing people to the then

remote area of Northern Michigan in the 1850’s but it doesn’t seem to be the industry that

is sustaining the city today. Grand Traverse County has seen a decline in agriculture

related industries since the mid 20th century, including cherry farms.9 Professional,

management and related occupations have replaced the cherry industry as the leading

fields of employment. Jobs in “management, professional and related occupations”,

which includes hospitality, accounts for nearly 32% of employed workers in Grand

Traverse County while farming only accounts for 0.4%.10 Additionally, as Traverse City

is home to the nationally known Munson Medical Center, 22% of the county’s population

works in the health and social services industry.11

The Cherry Festival’s Affect on the Local Economy

The Cherry festival draws nearly half a million people to Traverse City each year,

which means that a lot of money is being injected into the local economy through hotels,

resorts, restaurants, boat rentals etc.. The location of the Cherry Festival also helps to

support the local economy. The traditionally recognized center of the Cherry Festival is

positioned only one block away from the downtown area which consists of eight city

blocks worth of local businesses. According to the National Cherry Festival Website, the

positive financial impact on the area, which they note to be a conservative figure based

on a nationally accepted formula, is $26,000,000 new dollars each year.12 In addition to

9 As seen from the 1930 to 1980 economic census information: www.census.gov 10 2000 census information for Grand Traverse County: www.census.gov 11 2000 census information for Grand Traverse County: www.census.gov 12 National Cherry Festival Website: http://www.cherryfestival.org

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the direct money spent by those while visiting Traverse City to attend the Cherry

Festival, many tourists buy property and permanent or vacation homes in the area further

enriching the economy.

EVOLUTION OF THE CHERRY FESTIVAL

Traverse City has changed from an agricultural community to a thriving

commercial center, and the Cherry Festival has been taken along for the ride. The

changes in the Cherry Festival itself reflect the transition that the city has taken. For

example, the Cherry Festival now has corporate sponsorship from Alltel, which is a

cellular communications company. As a corporate sponsor, Alltel is permitted to have an

enormous display area in the Open Space to promote their company. Further, their logo

appears next to the Cherry Festival logo in every location. How does corporate

sponsorship from a cellular communications company contribute to the celebration of the

cherry harvest? It doesn’t. However, corporate sponsorship from a product unrelated to

the cherry harvest does reflect the evolution of the Cherry Festival from “a celebration of

everything cherry” to a festival that celebrates Traverse City as a whole.

Another example of how the Cherry Festival has moved away from its central

value of supporting farms can be seen from the shortage of cherries that local crops have

been able to provide for the last few years. As mentioned in the introduction, cherry

production has decreased of the past few years because of untimely cold weather during

the spring season. Of course, when people go to the Cherry Festival they expect to see

and eat a lot of cherries, so when local farmers were unable to produce enough cherries

for the festival in 2002, event coordinators were faced with a problem. The solution they

chose was to purchase and import a large quantity of cherries from growers in

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Washington State.13 Purchasing cherries from a competing region shows that the Cherry

Festival is no longer just about supporting local growers.

These two examples illustrate the Cherry Festival’s transformation from an event

simply to entice the buying and selling of cherries to an event to entice the buying and

selling of everything in Traverse City. The evolution of the festival reflects the change in

Traverse City’s economy from one based primarily on agriculture to one based primarily

on management, professional and related occupations including hospitality. The Cherry

Festival’s change over time shows that it may not have ever really been about the cherry

growers but more about what was important to the community. When the festival first

started, Grand Traverse County was an agricultural community that produced mainly

cherries which was what was important to the community at that time. However, as the

city grew, cherry growers became the minority as other industries flourished. Now, as

less than half a percent of the total population in Grand Traverse County are farmers, the

festival has changed to reflect is the aspects of the economy that are valued in the

community today.

THE CHERRY FESTIVAL AND PHYSICAL SPACE

Physical space is a highly profitable commodity in Traverse City during the

Cherry Festival. Of course, this is to be expected when a city built to accommodate about

20,000 permanent residents has an influx of 500,000 visitors over the course of a week.

This shortage of space during the festival has prompted would-be entrepreneurs to take

advantage of the situation. Everything from private driveways for parking to sidewalk

space for selling bottled water is sold to directly or indirectly accommodate festival-

goers. The Open Space, however, is affected by a shortage of space in a different way. 13 O’Brien, 2002

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During the Cherry Festival there are often more vendors interested in setting up

at the Open Space than there is space available for them.14 Since most, if not all,

attendees visit the Open Space during the cherry festival it is the most sought-after

location for local vendors to set up their displays. Like all physical spaces, the Open

Space has capacity limits. However, this limit will be vastly expanded due to a recent

decision by the city utility board.

Demolition of the Traverse City Light and Power building, which was located

adjacent to the Open Space, commenced in late 2004 and was completed during the

summer of 2005.15 The old coal-burning power plant had not been used for quite some

time and was commonly known as the eye-sore of Grand Traverse County due to its

green paint exterior and obstruction of the bay view.16 The demolition of the power plant

and reuse of the space it previously occupied was strongly supported by both local

residents and the Cherry Festival board of directors.17 This addition to the Open Space

will add much wanted vendor space during the Cherry Festival. Adding more vendor

space means that the Cherry Festival will be collecting more money from the additional

vendors the Open Space can now accommodate.

As Li Zhang notes in Strangers in the City, those who control space, where it is a

highly sought after commodity, are socially powerful.18 Some Traverse City vendors

depend on earning more than half of their yearly profits during the time of the Cherry

14 According to posts by members of the “cherry chat” message board on www.cherryfestival.org 15 See figure 2 16 Sullivan, 2004 17 According to letters written to the editor of the Traverse City Record Eagle on Nov. 6th, 2004 and a phone interview with Chuck O’Connor, the marketing director for the National Cherry Festival 18 Zhang, Li. Strangers in the City, page 7.

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Festival, so occupying a profitable space is essential to the survival of their businesses.19

The Open Space draws the most consumer traffic, giving a great deal of power to the

organizers of the Cherry Festival since they are the ones that allocate the space to the

vendors. The process of choosing the vendors has no oversight from the local

government, which leaves an opening for favoritism or corruption. For example, if a

Cherry Festival organizer held a grudge against a particular restaurant owner, they could

simply deny them a spot in the Open Space. If the restaurant depended on profits made

from the Cherry Festival this action could cause them to go out of business.

The power that the Cherry Festival organizers possess is amplified by the fact that

the Open Space is used solely to facilitate the Cherry Festival.20 Since the city reserves

the use of the Open Space for the Cherry Festival, Cherry Festival Organizers become the

sole delegaters of that space for commercial use. So the only way for a private vendor to

use the prime location of the Open Space to promote their business or product is to go

through the Cherry Festival organizers. Even though the Open Space is a public space by

legal terms, here it becomes a somewhat private space due to the ultimate delegating

powers of the festival organizers. The privatization of this public space would again seem

to open the door for corruption and favoritism.

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

Since the Cherry Festival still takes place even when the cherry harvest is a

failure, there must be another reason that it still takes place. Traverse City’s shifting

economy seems to have produced the change in focus seen in the today’s Cherry Festival.

19 According to a phone interview with Chuck O’Connor, the marketing director for the National Cherry Festival. 20 According to a phone interview with Chuck O’Connor, the marketing director for the National Cherry Festival

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Now that less than half a percent of Grand Traverse County’s population work on, for or

at farms, the cherry harvest is not as important to the local economy as it once may have

been. The popularity of the Cherry Festival itself may be the cause of the festival’s shift

of focus.

As the Cherry festival became more and more popular, the need arose for more

and more hospitality driven businesses including hotels, restaurants, and shops. Without

more places to eat, sleep and shop, Traverse City would not have been able to

accommodate the people that came to visit for the Cherry Festival. As the Festival grew

and Traverse City’s businesses offered more to their guests, the allure of city seems to

have become its amenities instead of its cherry crop. The state of the Cherry Festival

today seems to reflect this, as it is now a highly commercialized event and has taken steps

to further support local businesses instead of local farmers. This is illustrated by the

Cherry Festival voicing support to demolish the adjacent power-plant so that it would

have more space for vendors, and purchasing cherries from Washington growers when

the local crop was a failure. If the Cherry Festival were truly still about supporting local

farmers then there would be no need to demolish the power plant as there is already

enough room at the Open Space for all the local growers to be represented and they

would not have bought cherries from competing sources.

Today, to not host the Cherry Festival due to a cherry crop failure would be

devastating to the Traverse City economy. Businesses have come to rely on the profits

made during the cherry festival, and the tourism infrastructure would surely weaken if not

for the allure of this summer celebration. Cancelling the Cherry Festival due to a failed

crop back when it was still “The Blessing of the Blossoms” would have been appropriate

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but today it is not an option, hence the reason cherries were imported from Washington:

to ensure the success of the CHERRY Festival. After all, why would anyone go to a

Cherry Festival that has no cherries?

The Use of Public Space

The Cherry Festival’s use of public space shows its move towards promoting

Traverse City as a whole instead of just the cherry farmers. However, the manner in

which Cherry Festival organizers manage this space invokes social power relations that

could lead to corruption or favoritism. A display at the Open Space is profitable for local

vendors during the Cherry Festival but the choosing of what businesses to place within

this limited space is not overseen. This gives power to the Cherry Festival organizers

given the limited space they temporarily control. However, it was not clear from the

research conducted for this essay if the power relations have excluded a particular group

of vendors from having displays at the Cherry Festival.

Societies change according to the stresses imposed upon them. From this study

we see that events that take place within a community, such as the Cherry Festival, can

reflect the changes that the society has undergone. The Cherry Festival’s change of focus,

which can be seen through its use of space, is symbolic of the Traverse City’s changing

economy.

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Bibliography

CensusFinder 1930 Michigan Census Records Index. Electronic document,

http://www.censusfinder.com/michigan2.htm, accessed December 12, 2005.

Karbowski, Forrest

2004 Farmers buried in cherry harvest. The Record Eagle, July 24 McCray, Venessa

2005 Ideas for Space to be Revisited. The Record Eagle, February 5 Miller, Rikki

2005 Cherry Connection exhibit highlights fruit's health benefits, crop care. The Record Eagle, July 5

O'Brien, Bill

2002 Board rules roadside stands must sell fruit from five-county area. The Record Eagle, August 12

Steele, Lori Hall

2002 Cherry farmers brace for worst. The Record Eagle, July 30 Sullivan, Patrick

2004 Judge OKs razing power plant. The Record Eagle, October 22 Warren, Kimberly

2002 Festival expects record crowds. The Record Eagle, July 6

United States Department of Agriculture 1997 Census of Agriculture State Profile. Electronic document,

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/97profile_mi_26474_7.pdf, accessed December 10, 2005.

United Census Bureau

2000 State & County QuickFacts. Electronic document, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/26055lk.html, accessed December 12, 2005.

Zhang, Li

2001 Strangers in the City. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press

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Appendix of Images and Figures

FIGURE 1 The Open Space, circled in red.

FIGURE 2 The power plant, circled in green and the Open Space circled in red.