Jun 19, 2025
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As regional pioneers who started forging the template for creating successful community events attracting thousands of people throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region and beyond, the public service group then known as PRIDE in Saginaw and now known as Positive Results in Downtown Saginaw is poised to launch the 27th Season of their innovative musical festival series known as Friday Night Live, which will be returning to Morley Plaza in Downtown Saginaw on July 11th with a massive 50th Anniversary Bash and will continue with a weekly six-week series of concerts showcasing top-notch musical talent through August 15th.
Throughout their five-decade tenure, Positive Results has created numerous signature events and celebrations such as Bringing Back the Ice, Holidays in the Heart of the City, Harvest Days, The Outhouse Races, and the annual Memorial Day Parade; but without doubt, one of their most successful endeavors was to introduce the concept for packaging six consecutive weekends of premier musical entertainment in order to merge commerce, culture, and community together through a series of Theme Concerts that would open the door to introduce patrons throughout the Mid-Michigan area and beyond to the dynamics of the Downtown Saginaw Business District.
For 30-years a majority of these ground-breaking events were hatched and cultivated through the diligent and passionate commitment of Executive Director Jeanne Conger, who recently retired her role at this formidable organization and handed over the reins to new Executive Director, Ann Marie Batkowski-Sullivan, who shares Conger’s love and passionate commitment to her hometown and is poised to focus her own unique expertise into navigating this impressive organization to even higher levels of engagement and success for a new generation.
In the Beginning
The vision behind Positive Results in Downtown Saginaw began back in 1975 through the joint efforts of the downtown Saginaw business community, the Junior League and the City of Saginaw, along with a core group of volunteers concerned with the future of the Downtown.
Their goals centered upon attracting new business to the district, encouraging and supporting the existing business & professional community, and beautifying the downtown environment while creating a positive and constructive image of the Downtown area, all with an eye towards promoting and stimulating ongoing activities that are attractive to people and businesses.
“When we first developed the idea for Friday Night Live, there were naysayers who said a festival such as this would never fly in Downtown Saginaw because people wouldn’t come down to support it, so it has been gratifying to watch it continue to develop and evolve,” reflects Jeanne Conger. “The first week of the first festival when it debuted 27 years ago we had hundreds of people and then every week after it started doubling in numbers and continued to build.”
“The idea for Friday Night Live came about after PRIDE decided to stop sponsoring the Gus Macker Tournament,” explains Jeanne. “When we first promoted the Gus Macker there were only two or three tournaments in the entire state of Michigan, but when we decided to stop there were 28 tours going on, so it was a struggle for us to even break even on that event.”
“We wanted to find something new for the community, so Linda McGee knew about this festival developed in Traverse City where they would close down the streets and stage a music festival for several consecutive weeks in the summer,” continues Conger.
“We drove up in a snowstorm to meet with the people who staged it and asked if we could model our event after theirs, which is what we did. But the challenge for us was that all Traverse had to do was close the streets because they had restaurants & bars available for food service & beverages, but we didn’t have that in downtown Saginaw so we had to create it, which is why we brought food vendors in and created an adult beverage area in order to compensate. Our focus is always on staging a good concert, breaking even, and adding to the quality of life for the people living here.”
Contributing to their early success was the fact that 30 years ago about the only two regional summer festivals going on were the Chesaning Showboat and the Frankenmuth Bavarian Festival, and the Matrix: Midland Festival. “We were the only ones staging a 6-week music festival of this nature, but now today there must be around twenty. Over the years various townships and counties throughout the region saw what we were doing and had successfully accomplished, so they started developing these types of summer concert series in their own parks and neighborhoods.”
“Bay City, Frankenmuth, and Tittabawassee Township are all staging festivals and you even have Spaulding Township and the YMCA doing them now, so a lot of people took this concept and adapted it for their own purposes,” adds Entertainment Director & Board Member Dr. Jack Nash. “With all this competition going on, there’s a different flow that can be more challenging to navigate, but what we try to do is offer the best entertainment we can afford that spans a variety of tastes and styles of music.”
Today the Friday Night Live series will pull tens of thousands of people over a six-week period into Downtown Saginaw, with numbers varying according to the nature of the theme night and the weather. “Our primary focus has always been to look at the cultural aspect of being able to bring this top quality entertainment at a price everybody can afford, which is free, so it doesn’t matter what a person’s economic situation or ethnic background is and its worked,” notes Jeanne.
“Our focus is on serving the public as an entertainment venue, not an adult beverage venue,” notes Nash. “Plus, many of these competing events can get real expensive to attend. “Many of these marquee concerts up at Wenonah Park can cost forty or fifty bucks to attend, while we’ve always been adamant about keeping Friday Night Live a FREE concert series. Plus, thanks to our friends at WKCQ, over the years we’ve been able to feature artists such as Keith Urban, Racal Flatts, and Chris Stapleton before they became huge stars, so patrons have responded strongly to what we’ve been able to offer.”
Vital Present, Future Focus
When it comes to articulating the direction, scope, and public awareness of Positive Results many numerous endeavors and roles throughout the region, new Executive Director Ann Marie Batkoski-Sullivan is eminently qualified to fill the rigorous and bold footsteps of its former director.
A Saginaw native who studied five years at Delta College & SVSU before getting what she calls her “first real job” working the front desk at Saginaw’s YMCA, she moved on to the Membership Committee until one fateful day Michael Emmenecker, former owner of J.R. Heineman approached her, saying he was looking for help.
“He interviewed me on the treadmill and asked if I knew anything about construction,” she recalls. “When I told him no, he said that was fine because he could teach me, went on to hire me, and I spent nearly eight years working for him. When he moved to Spence Brothers I followed him and spent another six years working there, where I learned to love Herb Spence’s strong community involvement vibe, which was really appealing to me.”
“From there I moved on to RC Hendrick and working construction will all these family-owned businesses made me realize at some point I’m going to run out of companies, so finished my Bachelor’s Degree at CMU in community development,” she continues. “From thee I worked at Michigan Works a couple years focusing upon workforce development connecting employers to labor along with marketing and communications; and from there I moved ISD as a grant writer and coordinator to business partnerships for six years, served on this board at Positive Results for three years. I was also an association secretary for the Downtown Saginaw Business Association and on the YMCA Membership Committee for a while and co-chaired two years of their campaign, co-chaired for the Dow Event Center as part of their 2010 campaign, have been part of Leadership Saginaw, and have a lot of people on the way.”
“I have a long-term history of involvement with the people and promoting our community and my friends call me the unofficial Mayor of Saginaw because I always strive to have a pulse on what’s going on,” she reflects. “Because I’m involved in so many different things or know people who are, I’m excited to bring my networking skills and ability to fundraise into my new role here at Positive Results.”
When asked what her goals are for the organization Ann Marie place public awareness as one of her top priorities. “Positive Results puts on all these well-established and amazing events, yet most people assume that the city does these things because most municipalities pay for these types of concerts, parades, and events, so one of my big goals is to let people know it’s Positive Results in Downtown Saginaw who is responsible for putting these things together.”
“We work very well with the City of Saginaw and they are great with assisting us on all of our endeavors, but I feel it important to build more public awareness about this organization,” she continues. “We have fantastic volunteers, wonderful committees, and a committed Board of Directors, so I’m not here to change any of the events we’ve established, but I definitely want to see more collaboration. I want to work with Old Town Saginaw and bring both Downtown and Old Town together so we’re not fighting for the same participants. One of my important goals is to work with all our partners to see how we can collaborate more and market better to collectively tie together all of our goals.”
“I’m very big into networking, partnerships, and collaborations and realize that while we’re all fighting for the same grants and dollars, know that if we can all work together we can better advance our collective goals.”
Downtown Saginaw has witnessed many ups & downs since the inception of Friday Night Live, but 27 years down the road, Ann Marie’s perception of the Downtown business is decidedly upbeat. “I see lots of activity and positivity happening over the next year,” she reflects. “Hoyt Park is undergoing an impressive renovation and we’re bring two State tournaments into town for two weekends this summer at the state level for modified softball; plus, we’ll have new lighting down there and new pavilion renovations courtesy of the Memorial Cup Legacy Fund that will allow for a new fireplace for use during sledding and ice staking season. There’s a group of women who will be spending two weeks in July to do some landscaping and gardening in and around Ojibway Island, and with the new stage renovations at the island, more opportunities for events and concerts like the upcoming Southern Rib Fest will be opening up. In Old Town Saginaw we have new owners for the former Old Town Distillery opening up and are seeing lots of younger people revitalizing the business district, which is all incredibly exciting.”
Entertainment Director and Board Member Dr. Jack Nash is equally enthusiastic. “The City of Saginaw has been working with us very well for the last four years, and both the Mayor and City Manager are looking out for us and laying out the blueprint for future growth with the upcoming new Medical Center, as well as with our own events here at Positive Results. They have become more user friendly.”
When asked why he feels the appeal of Friday Night Live registers so strongly with the public, Nash focuses on the quality and variety of talent presented. “We feature mainly premier talent. Most of the other festivals feature local talent, which we do as well for our opening acts while focusing on presenting headlining acts making national inroads. But we always strive to bring in the best national talent we can afford for the community, largely thanks to our sponsors who have come to back us up, along with the businesses in Saginaw that want to see Downtown Saginaw truly prosper”
“Our primary focus has always been to look at the cultural aspect of being able to bring this top quality entertainment at a price everybody can afford, which is free, so it doesn’t matter what a person’s economic situation or ethnic background is, and its worked very well for us”
In addition to a variety of food vendors and giveaways to the first 100 attendees, this year Friday Night Lie will also have a new and improved area for Kids, thanks to a generous donation from Meijer’s.
Here’s the lowdown on this year’s impressive line-up of entertainment:
July 11 • 50th ANNIVERSARY BASH featuring Pesky Kid with headliner WONDERLOVE - The Stevie Wonder Experience.
“Given this is our season kick-off and our PRIDE 50th Anniversary celebration, we wanted to feature a Stevie Wonder tribute artist, given that Stevie was born in Saginaw,” explains Jack Nash. “This group is out of Chicago and do an incredible job. Sponsored by Garber Automotive Group & 96.1 WHNN, the opening artist Pesky Kid is a genre-bending post-modern Electro-Pop performance art project created by Saginaw’s Ben Champagne and was nominated and Best New Artist and Most Innovative Artist at the 37th REVIEW Music Awards.
July 18 • Downtown Hoedown featuring The Claim Jumpers with headliner WAYLON HANEL
Waylon Hanel is an up-and-coming regional Country artist hailing out of Millington who has been causing quite a stir. Hanel has opened for Travis Tritt, Chris Cagle, Jerrod Niemann, Tyler Farr and Uncle Kracker, while opening act The Claim Jumpers features the talents of several members from Stone Street Revival. This event will also include a Salute to Veteran’s Night featuring the Michigan National Guard.
July 25 • LATIN FIESTA featuring Los Aztecas with headliner GRUPO VICO
For this exceptional evening of Latin entertainment, two headlining Tejano & Conjunto groups will be performing, one from the Detroit area and the other out of Toledo.
Aug. 1 • RIVERFRONT BLUES FEST featuring The Pride & Joy Blues Band with headliner SHARRIE WILLIAMS
Saginaw’s own Sharrie Wiliams is better known as Queen of the Blues, having won international acclaim for her passionate and soulful vocal renderings of Blues, Rock, and R&B classics, in addition to her powerful original material.
Aug. 7 • THAT 70’s NIGHT featuring Shawn McGinnis - Tom Petty Tribute with headliner DISCO DISCO
With Disco music making a comeback in Canada, the Canadian group Disco Disco will be headlining That 70’s Night, while Detroit based artist Shawn McGinnis will cover one of the 70s pivotal rock artists with his Tom Petty Tribute.
Aug 16 • MOTOWN MUSIC FEST featuring Charles Allen with headliner PERSUASION BAND
Closing out this year’s Friday Night Live Series with Motown Night, which is always a big crowd pleaser, are local artist Charles Allen and Persuasion Band, who were also last year’s headliners and return by popular demand. The Persuasion Band is a dynamic eight-piece party, dance and show band providing top notch, live musical entertainment, fronted by extraordinary lead vocals with an infectious and tight rhythm section.
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