04/20/2007

Music acts are announced

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

mdrahos@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
The festival’s commemorative print winner was Carol Hansen, a Marion art teacher and artist.

TRAVERSE CITY — Country music band Ricochet and '80's pop-rock band The Romantics will lead the entertainment line-up at this year's National Cherry Festival.

Other acts scheduled to perform at the Bayside Entertainment Area July 7-14 are the perennially popular Beatles tribute band 1964 The Tribute, Southern rock band Dicky Betts and Great Southern, roots rocker Marshall Crenshaw and The Flask with hometown rocker Kenny Olson.

The partial line-up was announced Thursday at the Hagerty Center, where the 2007 Festival Commemorative Print also was unveiled. The Audubon-style design by Carol Hansen depicts two cherry tree branches against an "antique paper” background featuring the names of cherry varieties.

It was inspired by old botanical prints and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, said Hansen, 51, an artist and art teacher from Marion.

Hansen's was one of three winning designs in adult, student and youth categories. Jacob Newhouse, 9, a third-grader at Westwoods Elementary, took first place in the youth category while Brad Davis, a Kalkaska resident and 22-year-old senior at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla. took first in the student category.

Hansen's design is old-fashioned, but this year's festival is all about looking ahead, said Festival Executive Director Tom Menzel. Besides a new Open Space layout designed for more "family-friendly” space, the festival will feature several new Open Space events and a new, "green” look.

"The 81st festival is unique in that you will start to see the results of everyone's forward thinking,” Menzel said. "Our goal is to lay a foundation of fun and excitement for people of all ages and to promote the region from an economic perspective with an emphasis on the cherry industry.”

Operations manager Sue Wagner said the festival listened to the Traverse City Commission and local residents when it redesigned its layout.

The Bayside Stage area will be moved to the south end of the Open Space and face north to reduce noise to the downtown area. A smoke-free family activities area will be created inside the zoo train tracks and east of Marina Drive.

And a festival market place area on the former Traverse City Light and Power grounds will feature food, beverages, souvenirs and cherry products, along with special events like Ultimate Air Dogs and Special Kids Day.

Out is the $25 fee charged to festival volunteers, and back by popular demand will be a recycling program with 10 recycling stations or "festival green centers” where festival-goers can deposit plastic, paper, steel cans, food and other compostable materials.

Beverages at the Beverage Pavilion will be served in 100 percent recyclable cups made of corn.

The program will recycle about 100 tons of material, officials estimated.

New to the festival's nearly 150 events will be Health By the Bay, featuring health screenings and a blood donation center, a Battle of the Bands showcasing amateur musicians from kitchen steel pan bands to garage rock bands and a "Fire and Smoke by the Bay” grilling contest in which participants grill salmon, ribs and ground beef with cherries and their own "secret” ingredients.

Several favorite festival events also will be enhanced, including the Cherries Grand Buffet and Cherries D'Vine.

"The big challenge is to make the festival new and exciting and fun,” said Festival President Wes Nelson.