The Top Cherries

Only five people have been paid executive directors of the National Cherry Festival since its beginnings 89 years ago. It’s a job that comes with parades and smiles and crowds – but also with lots of logistics and high expectations. Tom Menzel, Tim Hinkley, and Trevor Tkach – the Festival’s three most recent leaders – each faced their own challenges in the position. Menzel stared down near bankruptcy and reorganized the archaic board structure; Hinkley made the organization more transparent; Tkach now looks to the future as some clamor for a more “authentic” festival experience.

The three haven’t sat down to reflect on the event’s history, future, and their own experiences until now. Given that the Cherry Fest begins tomorrow, below is an excerpt of a conversation between the three published in this week's Northern Express. The talk was cheery, candid – and even led to a few surprises. Is a parade from Cherry Festivals past coming back?

Express: Tom, you came in during a very difficult time for the Festival. Not sure the community realized how bad things were.
Menzel: I was asked to come in and fix some things. I reported to 87 people on three different boards. So I had to go through some heavy lifting, asking people who had been in their positions for 25 or 30 years to vote themselves out. We had $547,000 in debt on a building, and a line of credit we were 60 percent into, and you need to put money out to get [music] acts. So I acted right away or there might have been bankruptcy. I don’t think there was an awareness among some about the serious financial trouble at the time.

Hinkley: You can say that now, but you couldn’t then. And heavy lifting is an understatement. If you had not changed the organization, I wouldn’t have considered the job.

Tkach: Didn’t somebody spit on you back then, Tom? At Friday Night Live after you canceled the Heritage Parade? You took a lot of heat. I learned a lot from you and that. You take it, and you have to have thick skin.

Menzel: You take the high road. If you get into it at that level, you’ve lost. I was brought in as a change agent, and if you’re a change agent, you always keep your resume in your right lapel. It’s high risk.

Express: What about competition? The Cherry Festival’s not the only game in town anymore.
Hinkley: That was a key thing; we had no competition, and then all of the sudden there was the [Traverse City] Film Festival and [Traverse City Beach Bums] baseball. It actually I think has made the Festival much better.

Menzel: It was change or die, and it did make us better. The Film Festival forced that, really. We were competing for volunteers and more. But it was two potentially strong brands, with somewhat different demographic profiles. Both were advantageous to the community, though a lot of people didn’t look at it that way then.

Express: So what’s next for the National Cherry Festival?
Tkach: If I had a crystal ball, I wouldn’t be working for the Cherry Fest! We have a community that embraces the Festival again. But like Disney used to say, ‘If it isn’t broke, break it.’”

We want to have a far more interactive relationship with residents and customers. We have more transparency now, and want to kind of let the people and the market make the decisions going forward. It’s been that way since Tom took over. Back then we knew we had to sell tickets at the Open Space and we had to grow new lines of revenue like running races.

Express: So what does the Festival have to do now?
Tkach: Again, trying to reconnect locally with that local pride. Trying to keep our audiences engaged with smaller programming like street buskers…music performers during lunches down at the Open Space…working with Taste The Local Difference on food events that are locally sourced. That’s important to the community, and tourists are now looking for that.

Hinkley: They come back year after year, but they always want something new.

Tkach: And then this year we have the [U.S. Air Force] Thunderbirds back, and that’s a big deal. It’s been 25 years since they were here.

And next year is our 90th. And one thing Tom had to let go was the Heritage Parade. So can we bring that back? It might seem trivial to some, with its tractors and old cars…but if there’s a lot of interest and financial backing, That was a parade for the locals. And we’re also looking at the big picture. We’ve peaked at the Open Space. We can’t do anything more down there. So do you expand on the calendar and explore things at other times of year or add different venues? Yet there’s also some tension in the community; they want a balance, and they’re asking us to be cognizant that this is our backyard. So how do we make sure we respect that?