Cherry Blossoms, Sake & Sumo: A Weekend to Remember

Arkansans turned out in record numbers for a trio of events celebrating Spa City’s relationship with its sister city of Hanamaki, Japan. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival, American Craft Sake Fest and Sumo! Sumo! Sumo! Exhibition, held the first weekend of March, drew enthusiastic onlookers in a manner that surprised organizers.

“The level of enthusiasm really surprised me. People were really into it,” said Steve Arrison, CEO of the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau and manager of the Hot Springs Convention Center and Summit Arena. “It was just a different atmosphere than you usually see. Ninety-nine percent of the crowd was seeing something for the very first time.

“We were all exposed to so much culture that I didn’t even know existed, especially the Cherry Blossom Festival. The cherry on top was the sumo competition that you’ve seen in the movies or maybe on TV but never had the opportunity to see live before. I couldn’t believe the overwhelming great response that we had to everything, I just thought it was a really great weekend.”

Mary Zunick, cultural affairs manager for Visit Hot Springs, estimated attendance for the festival at 4,000, with an additional nearly 2,000 spectators at the sumo exhibition and more than 400 at the sake festival. By comparison, last year’s Cherry Blossom Festival drew about 2,500 guests.

“Last year we had five workshops, this year we had nine and they were sold out. Some of them oversold,” she said. We also had more performers this year; we had a group from St. Louis, the taiko drummers, and they did a phenomenal job. Yoshi Amao from New York did the samurai sword performance, which was also very, very well received.”

Zunick said her office had not yet been able to total up how much the Cherry Blossom Festival and Sumo! Sumo! Sumo! raised for educational exchange programs but said the success of the event has given the team many ideas for next year’s festival.

“One thing that we really did notice was the synergy between having all of the organizations and all of the different events going on at the same time,” she said. “That created so much positive synergy that just helped all of the events out. We were all promoting with our different segments and the overlap was beneficial to all of the events.

“As far as the Cherry Blossom Festival in the future, we have a couple of ideas. Yoshi Amao, the samurai swordsman, performs with a whole group of people and it’s been suggested that we might bring them in next year. You can’t do a cherry blossom festival without a taiko drum crew, they will always be a part of it. Nothing says Japan like the sound of those taiko drums.”

Matt Bell, co-founder of Origami Sake in Hot Springs, said the ability to host the American Craft Sake Fest exposed many participants to the city’s various amenities.

Matt Bell and Heather Baker

“It was an outstanding success,” Bell said. “We had people from all over the United States – California, Oregon, New York and all parts in between – as well as Japan. We sold the most tickets they’ve ever sold at the event.

“Every one of the brewers that came in, and we had over 20 breweries represented here, were super impressed with the city, the turnout and the event itself. I think it was a very good impression the community made on the association and this group of brewers.”

Origami Sake, the state’s only sake brewery, has grown rapidly since opening last year, Bell said.

“It’s really growing faster than we could have hoped for,” he said. “Sake is not as crowded a market when you talk about American-made craft sake. There’s just a handful and most of those are not widely distributed. There’s only a few of those that you can count on one hand that sell outside their own taprooms. When you compare it to Japan, there’s roughly 1,100 breweries in a country that’s three-quarters the size of California.

“What our strategy has always been is to expand sake outside of traditional sushi, hibachi, Asian cuisine restaurants. There’s no better place than Arkansas to take charge and lead a beverage movement, much like Kentucky did with bourbon and Tennessee with whiskey and Napa Valley with great wines. That’s the reason we wanted them here, to understand not only what we’re doing but what the opportunity is for everyone that’s in this very niche market.”

The sumo exhibition was also a first for the Natural State and featured three champion competitors. The wrestlers demonstrated the ancient sport of sumo versus each other and also took on three local celebrities, longtime radio personality and Hot Springs native Roger Scott, local banker Don Gooch of Arvest and AY Media Group President and Publisher Heather Baker.

“The celebrities we had, you couldn’t ask for a better job,” Arrison said. “Heather, Don and Roger bought into it and were very entertaining, to say the least. And nobody got hurt, so I’m really excited about that.”

Arrison said the city has likely not seen the last of the traditional wrestling event.

“We’re talking about bringing actual sumo matches next year, bringing eight sumo champions in and actually doing a tournament,” he said. “That’s what we’re discussing right now.”