Photo by Rana Fayez

Do you have a porch? Do you love live music? Would you like to have live music on your porch? Then there’s some good news! The third annual West Philly Porchfest is happening June 2nd, 2018 and you can be part of it.

An outdoor music festival where the stages are neighborhood porches, Porchfest started in Ithaca, NY back in 2007. The concept spread across the country, and made it here to West Philly in 2016. The festival is volunteer-run and completely free, and you can sign up as a band, as a porch or just as a general volunteer. 

The idea behind Porchfest, according to organizer Owen Lyman-Schmidt, is that music can be a unifying force that cuts across demographics lines. “A gentrifying neighborhood can mean defacto segregation,” Lyman-Schmidt says. Additionally, “there’s a lot of DIY music in the neighborhood. Punk basements, folk music living room shows, a lot of stuff below the radar. That tends to increase the exclusivity of those events and reinforce power differentials. Porchfest… brings that music into the light of day.”

Porchfest 2018 is currently looking for people willing to volunteer their porch for performances. You have to own the porch or, if you rent, have the landlord’s permission, and you’re also responsible for making sure your neighbors are OK with having a band playing.

Porch owners are able to choose the band that plays on their porch, so you won’t get stuck with, say, a progressive vegetarian blackened grindcore band if you don’t want to. To volunteer your porch for Porchfest, sign up here. To learn more about the event, you can check out the Facebook page or the website.

– Mike VanHelder