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When guests enter the gates at 5 pm on Thursday evening, the opening of the Cherry Festival, they see vendors, tents, food booths, the carnival and many other things to have fun and entertain them. But how does this all happen? Saturday prior to the Cherry Festival opening and after the Cherry Fest car show, the park starts to change. Butler Entertainments starts marking out their layout for the carnival. The Cherry Festival trailer is moved from the storage area at Noble Creek Park to Stewart Park. Monday morning the week of the actual event, after 10 months of planning and after the city park department completes mowing the grass and preparing the park, the Cherry Festival Association (CFA) members start to work. The paint cans come out and the grass is marked showing the position of the storage trailer of the stored items (tents, trash cans, fencing and other supplies) while other members start erecting tents while the carnival sets up rides and booths in their area. On Tuesday, CFA members determine the location of the food, street vendor and arts and crafts booths while others are driving posts into the ground for crowd control fencing around the beer garden, stage, and food area. Once the posts are in place the fencing goes up and hundreds of wire ties are used to attach the fencing. Still others are hooking up the water lines for the food booths. The fence company installs the fencing surrounding the park and brings in the porta-potties. Rental tables and chairs are delivered and volunteers set them up the beer garden, food and entertainment areas. By the end Tuesday, the grounds are nearly ready for the festival. On Wednesday, food and street vendors start setting up. They are assigned a time to pick out their spaces — those who turned in their applications first get first pick. Banning RV loans the association to trailers, one for an office and one for entertainment area. The beer trailers and ice trailer arrive in the beer garden. The vendor that supplies electricity for the booths is instructed where power boxes are needed. By 5 pm on Wednesday most of the vendors are in place. At this time, the CFA members and directors hold a brief meeting followed by a barbecue and family get-together to say thank you to the family members. On Thursday the final street and arts and craft vendors arrive. CFA members check the grounds and make sure everything is ready, safe and make final adjustments as needed. CFA members and volunteers are on the grounds and ready to open at 5 pm. The gates are manned by community service clubs, and the carnival is set up and ready to go. The beer garden, entertainment and food are also ready for visitors to arrive. At 5 pm the gates open for four days of fun and entertainment at the Cherry Festival. Over the next four days CFA members and volunteers arrive at 8 am each day and many remain until about an hour after the festival closes, making for a 12 to 13 hour day. Hundreds of volunteer hours are involved in putting together the event. Once the event is open the CFA volunteers walk the grounds to ensure everything is safe and see that the guests are enjoying themselves. By the close of the event at 9 pm on Sunday, most of the CFA members and volunteers are tired from the long hours. But now is the time to start cleaning up. All the vendors are ready to leave and everyone is breaking down their booths and packing them into their cars and trucks. Volunteers clean the entertainment area, stack the chairs and tables in the beer garden and food area. By 10 pm most of the vendors are gone. The electrical vendor arrives and starts picking up their cords and electrical boxes. Carnival employees are disassembling rides and booths to move out during the night to their next location. It's about 11 pm and the members are tired and ready to go home for the night. Monday morning comes quick and at 8 am volunteers arrive to finish the clean up. Fencing and porta-potties are removed and the carnival is nearly ready to get on to their next location. CFA members help remove crowd control fencing and posts. The rental company picks up the tables and chairs and the beer and ice trailers are removed. The fence comes down, and all the equipment is packed back into the storage trailer for another year. By 4 pm, the grounds are clean and back for the public use as a park. The CFA would like to thank everyone who helps during the festival, including the boy scouts and parents for cleaning the grounds and taking the trash to the dumpsters during the event. A big thank you also to the community groups, Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, Soroptimist Clubs, VFW and Elks for working the gates, the Beaumont Fire Department for having personnel on the grounds for medical aid, the city of Beaumont and Beaumont police department for the use of the park and keeping the grounds safe as well as the volunteers who make this community event amazing. Finally, and most importantly, thank you to the thousands of people who attend the event to have fun and support the community. We could not do it with all of you. ~ Buzz Dopf, CFA President Behind the scenes of the Cherry Festival