TRAVERSE CITY -- Good weather, big crowds and revamped business strategies helped the National Cherry Festival make a profit for the first time in five years.
The festival's projected revenue is more than $88,000 for 2008, up from last year's net loss of $100,000.
There was record attendance, and festival Executive Director Tom Menzel credited high gas prices.
"A negative for the economy may have been a big plus for us in that we were one tank of gas away for some pretty big demographics," he said.
More local residents also came out.
"That helped swell the crowds," he said. "I think that was probably the thing I was most pleased with, is I saw local people enjoying it again and having fun, and that's what it's all about."
This was the first year the festival required a $10 entertainment pass instead of commemorative pins to enter concerts. Menzel said he was pleased with the system, but that it could change to individual tickets depending on the entertainment.
Increased revenues came from more online pre-sales of entertainment passes and tickets to events such as the Cherries Grand Buffet, said Mary Marois, incoming president of the festival's board of governors.
"Most of them were sold out before the beginning of the festival, which had never happened before," she said.
New events like Cherry Idol attracted people to the Open Space on weekday afternoons when they otherwise might not have come out, Marois said.
The festival still owes the city more than $28,800 plus interest in costs for police, fire and other public works services from the 2007 event. The 2008 charge of $40,000 to the city is already factored into budget projections.
Menzel, who took over as director in 2006, will step down when his contract expires in November.
During his tenure he streamlined the organizational structure, sold the former headquarters building on Sixth Street, and set up a nonprofit foundation.
Menzel said the organization was "living on our line of credit" when he began, and he reached his goal of getting out of that practice.
"For us to continue to be successful, it'll have to be a very fluid process of always looking at new ways to generate revenue and do it in a cost-effective manner," he said. "It isn't something now that you've had a profitable year that you rest on your laurels. It just gives you the foundation to build on to even get better at it."
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