5 Don’t-Miss Events at the Traverse City National Cherry Festival
Five events to add to your schedule for Traverse City's National Cherry Festival, including Sara Lee's cherry pie eating, a pow wow, an air show at Cherry Capital Airport and more.
Traverse City’s annual National Cherry Festival is a riotous summer blowout that runs eight days and serves up 150 events. If you can't get to every one of them (and who could?), be sure to check out these five must-do events. We scoured this terrific Traverse City event's schedule looking for the fun, the free, the traditional, the quirky—what you should be doing during festival week. For more, visit the events page at cherryfestival.org.
Grand Traverse Ottawa
Feel the drums and watch the dance as
Where: Festival Open Space,
When: 12 p.m. Thursday, July 7
Classic Movies at the State Theater
If the cool, dark seats of a movie theater sound better than the hot sun of a Northern Michigan summer, escape to the celluloid fantasies of the past and take in a free movie at Traverse City’s State Theater. The old movie house feel of the State, renovated by Michael Moore and home of the Traverse City Film Festival, enhances the fun of screwball comedies like Operation Petticoat and Pillow Talk, but if you only stop by for one movie during the festival, make it the excellent courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder. Seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for lawyer James Stewart; it’s worth your time. The week’s schedule is below.
Where
The State Theater,
When
10 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday of the festival
- Monday, July 6: Operation Petticoat
- Tuesday, July 7: A Summer Place
- Thursday, July 9: Pillow Talk
- Friday, July 10: Anatomy of a Murder
Cherry Pie (Sara Lee Cherry Pie Eating Contest and Grand Traverse Pie Company Make and Bake)
The truth is there are many places you could get your cherry pie fix at the festival. Very few of those places are free; these two are. Only the winners of the pie eating contest will receive prizes, but all participants get that free slice of pie. Registration is free. The Make and Bake event with Grand Traverse Pie Company lets you design your own pie and bake it; the rest is up to you. Both of these events have limited space, though, so show up early and hungry.
Where
Festival Open Space,
When
Sara Lee Cherry Pie Eating Contest
5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the festival
Grand Traverse Pie Company Make and Bake
1 p.m. Monday through Friday, July 6 through 10
Bed Race
Weird and, yes, even wacky don’t begin to describe it. Contestants dress in costumes and push or ride a specially designed bed down
Where
When
5 p.m. Thursday, July 9, before the Junior Royal Parade
The Air Show
The Air Show is a Cherry Festival fixture, they’ve always gone hand in hand. Gaze up in wonder at the aerial acrobatics and watch demonstrations of the latest the aircraft world has to offer. View the show in style from the top of the Park Place Hotel at the Air Show Gala—tickets are $50 a head—or just look up for free. Still not enough? Stop by the Air Show Open House between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, July 3 for games, food and a pilot meet and greet starting at 6 p.m. The Open House will be at the Northwestern Michigan College Air Hangar,
Where
The sky above
When
1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, July 4 and 5
QUICK LINKS TO MORE FUN IN TRAVERSE CITY!
- The Traverse City Vacation Directory: Listings to lodging, galleries, restaurants and more along with an interactive map.
- Traverse City Digital Vacation Guide: Browse the pages of the complete digital Guide and click to hundreds of websites.
- Video: Traverse City's Guide to Fun!
- The Complete Traverse City Restaurant Guide
- Flying in or out of Traverse City? Take a video tour of the Cherry Capital Airport to learn all you need to know.
- Plot your day in Traverse City using this Interactive Map: Choose an activity in "I'd like to find" and choose Traverse City for "in a town near." Then click away!
- Rent a Cottage in Traverse City
- Traverse City music, festivals, arts and hundreds of events
- Beaches near Traverse City
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