Porchfest – Ithaca, NY

Join us on Sunday, Sept 22, from noon until 6 PM, for the 2024 edition of Porchfest, Ithaca’s beloved neighborhood music festival! Here’s everything you need to know….

Porchfest 2024: Performers | Schedule | Map | Vendors

About 170 different performers and groups will take part in Porchfest this year, taking over the porches (and sometimes driveways, lawns or parks) of Fall Creek and Northside for an afternoon celebrating our wonderful, creative community.

Check out our Spotify playlist of Porchfest 2024 performers! Of course, not everyone has music on Spotify, so this is far from comprehensive; but it’s one easy way to start exploring this year’s music. (If you’re performing and we missed you, please send a link!)

Street Closures:

We’re closing a few streets to traffic during Porchfest, where we’re placing food vendors or expect significant crowds. If you live on one of these blocks, consider parking your car on an open street nearby for the afternoon so you can come and go more easily:

• All of UTICA STREET
• All of E. JAY STREET
• All of LEWIS ST (West and East)
• E. YATES STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• E. MARSHALL STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• W. MARSHALL STREET, and WILLOW AVE from Marshall to Yates
• N. TIOGA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• N. AURORA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• AUBURN STREET, from Jay to Dey
• ADAMS STREET, from Dey to Auburn

Parking:

There is ample street parking available around the neighborhood for visitors to Porchfest. You’ll have an easier time navigating to find a spot if you arrive before street closures begin at noon. If you’re not able to find street parking, we also suggest using any of the three parking garages in downtown Ithaca — they’re free on weekends, and just a few blocks from where Porchfest happens.

There will be NO PARKING on W. MARSHALL STREET, nor on the 200 block of AUBURN STREET (between Lewis to Dey), starting at 8:00 AM on Sunday, Sept. 22. This is so our food vendors can arrive and set up for the event. Vehicles still parked after 8:00 AM on Sunday, Sept 22, may be towed. We don’t wanna do that, and we’ve never had to before, so please do move your car for the day.

If your car is parked on a closed street during Porchfest and you need to get it out, please talk to one of our volunteers at the nearest traffic barricade, and they’ll be glad to carefully escort you out to open streets. They will also help residents get back in to closed streets as needed.

Maps:

The easiest, most up-to-date source of map and schedule info will always be our website! It works well on mobile devices, so it’s a great way to find your way around during the event.

Printed map and schedule booklets will be available for $1 during Porchfest at our information tent in Thompson Park. We charge a dollar to cover the cost of printing. Or, if you make a donation to Porchfest of a dollar or more, the booklet’s free!

Vendors:

More than 20 artists and artisans will take part in our second annual Makers Market! You’ll find everything from paintings to clothing, jewelry to baked goods, and more in Auburn Park throughout the afternoon.

Makers market vendors include: Abigail Tessier / Pixxier, ANURAN, art of yen ospina, Conversation Art Pieces, Daisy Hollow Farm, Evergreen Studios, Fancy That!, Fleece & Thank Ewe Fiber Worx, Guppy Moss Art, Julian Plum Illustration, KBerg Ceramics, LAMBWC, Little Ram Bakery, Midas Menagerie, Oracle chocolates, Pocketbooks and Pages, Rachel Feirman, Red Metal Jewelry, Sacred Somatic, Snail Boat Studio, The Mushroom Circle, and What’s in the Jar NY.

We also have some wonderful food vendors lined up for PorchFEAST this year, at both Thompson Park and Auburn Park.

At Thompson Park:
Cayuga Lake Creamery
Scooters BBQ
Silo Food Truck & Fry Stand

At Auburn Park:
Juicy’s Shanty
Silver Spoon
Vail Brothers/Sugar Lips Ice Cream
Yxi’s Arepas & Gordito

T-shirts, tote bags, and other merch featuring this year’s Porchfest art by Yen Ospina will be available from Muckles at Thompson Park. They screen print right there in the park, so you can pick your shirt color from their stock or bring your own!

Weather:

Porchfest is rain or shine. In case of severe weather, please make your way indoors or to your vehicle until it passes. We will communicate through Porchfest’s social media if such conditions seem imminent.

Volunteer:

It takes a fleet of volunteers to help make Porchfest happen safely, and we still need a few more for this year. Please see the Volunteer page on our website to sign up to help for part of the day!

Hotline:

If you need help or information during Porchfest, you can reach the organizers at 607-319-2770. You can also email us at info@porchfest.org

Presenting this year’s official Porchfest art, created by Yen Ospina! In addition to featuring in all our promotion of this year’s event, Yen’s beautiful work will also be available on T-shirts, tote bags, and other Porchfest merchandise.

—

Porchfest and WSKG Public Media are excited to announce a partnership aimed at enhancing fundraising and volunteer engagement efforts! As Tompkins County’s NPR and PBS station, WSKG is thrilled to support our amazing community event. WSKG will help amplify Porchfest’s calls for donations and volunteers to make the event possible, and will be on-site at Porchfest at our information tent and presenting their own porch with multiple performers.

—

Porchfest is made possible in part by a grant from the Tompkins County Tourism Program and fees from our vendors — that gets us a little more than halfway toward covering expenses. The rest of our budget comes from donations from you, the community that loves Porchfest and wants it to keep happening. Now is a great time to throw a few bucks in the hat, if you’re able!

Donate!

It takes dozens of volunteers to make Porchfest happen safely. Most of those volunteers are stationed where we have streets closed, to help make sure cars don’t come through and to help escort residents’ vehicles in or out of closed areas. Volunteer shifts are just two hours, so you can help out and still have plenty of time to see (or play) music! Sign up here:

Volunteer for Porchfest 2024

Performer applications are open through August 23! If you’d like to play Porchfest, all are welcome – just find yourself a place in the neighborhood to play, and sign up here:

Register to play at Porchfest 2024

Need a place to play? Want to offer your porch for a performer to play on? Visit our forum to connect:

https://www.porchfest.org/forum/

Artists interested in being part of the Porchfest Makers Market can sign up here. The Makers Market deadline has been extended to August 15.

Food vendors interested in taking part in Porchfest, please email vendors@porchfest.org

Any other questions, hit us up at info@porchfest.org

Hello, neighbors!

Ithaca’s Porchfest 2024 will be held on Sunday, September 22, from noon until 6:00 PM. It’s free and open for everyone to attend or perform!

Performer signups are open now, and will continue through August 23. All performers are responsible for finding a place to play, then sign up at the link below with the address. If you need help finding a place to play, or would like to offer your porch, please see the “Find or offer a porch” message board on our website.

Please sign up if you’re going to perform. A lot of work goes into arranging the schedule so performers aren’t too close together, and when people pop up unscheduled, it’s inconsiderate of your fellow performers. Don’t be that band — let us find you the right space to do your thing!

If you’re not sure whether you’ll be able to perform, go ahead and sign up. It’s much easier to remove people from the schedule later than to add them when the map is already crowded.

Note that, as in the past few years, the 12-1pm time slot will be for 100% acoustic performances only. Got a band with amps and microphones? Please don’t mark yourself available for the 12-1 pm time slot.

And as always, no matter your time slot, please be prepared to keep your volume pretty low so you’re not audible more than a few houses away. Porchfest is around 150 performers all within about a third of a square mile, and we all need to be considerate of other performers nearby. (Not to mention neighbors who don’t want to be blasted with sound like you’re playing the main stage at Coachella; this ain’t that, friends.)

All sound good? Sign up here!

---

It takes dozens of volunteers to make Porchfest happen safely! We’re scheduling volunteers in two-hour shifts this year, so you can help out and still have plenty of time to catch Porchfest performances. Are you able to give a couple hours of your time to help? Please sign up here!

---

One change to note this year: we’re planning to close ALL of Utica Street to vehicular traffic (except where Tompkins Street crosses Utica), so it’ll be a great avenue for moving north and south through the neighborhood by foot or bike! Other street closures will be the same as last year:

• All of UTICA STREET
• All of E. JAY STREET
• All of LEWIS ST (West and East)
• E. YATES STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• E. MARSHALL STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• W. MARSHALL STREET, and WILLOW AVE from Marshall to Yates
• N. TIOGA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• N. AURORA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• AUBURN STREET, from Jay to Dey
• ADAMS STREET, from Dey to Auburn
• CASCADILLA AVE (north side only)

There will be NO PARKING on W. Marshall Street or the 200 block of Auburn Street (from Lewis to Dey) so that food vendors can set up in those locations. If you normally park on these blocks, please make alternate arrangements for the day from 8am to 8pm.

---

Porchfest costs thousands of dollars to put on every year — for port-a-johns, security, insurance, permitting fees, and more. We make some money from vendor fees and grants, but donations from the community really help put us over the line. If you’d like to make a donation to help keep Porchfest viable, please do so here.

---

Questions? Comments? Contact Porchfest organizers Lesley and Andy at info@porchfest.org

Ithaca’s Porchfest will take place Sunday, September 22, 2024.

Performer signups are coming in July.

Vendors interested in selling food/beverage at Porchfest, please email vendors@porchfest.org

Join us on Sunday, Sept 24, from noon until 6 PM, for the 2023 edition of Porchfest, Ithaca’s beloved neighborhood music festival!

Porchfest 2023: Performers | Schedule | Map

(Some small shifts in the schedule are still possible. Please check back closer to next Sunday to make sure your favorite performers having moved times or locations!)

About 150 different performers and groups will take part in Porchfest this year, taking over the porches (and sometimes driveways, lawns or parks) of Fall Creek and Northside for an afternoon celebrating our wonderful, creative community.

What the neighborhood needs to know:

Street Closures:

We’re closing a few streets to traffic during Porchfest, where we’re placing food vendors or expect significant crowds. If you live on one of these blocks, consider parking your car on an open street nearby for the afternoon so you can come and go more easily:

• JAY STREET, from Cayuga to Tioga
• UTICA STREET, from Lincoln to Lewis
• YATES STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• E. MARSHALL STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• N. TIOGA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• N. AURORA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• W. MARSHALL STREET, and WILLOW AVE from Marshall to Yates
• AUBURN STREET, from Jay to Dey
• ADAMS STREET, from Dey to Auburn
• W. LEWIS ST
• CASCADILLA AVE (north side only)

Parking:

There will be NO PARKING on W. MARSHALL STREET, nor on AUBURN STREET from Lewis to Dey starting at 8:00 AM on Sunday, Sept. 25. This is so our food vendors can arrive and set up for the event. Vehicles still parked after 8:00 AM on Sunday, Sept 25, may be towed.

If your car is parked on a closed street during Porchfest and you need to get it out, please talk to one of our volunteers at the nearest traffic barricade, and they’ll be glad to carefully escort you out to open streets. They will also help residents get back in to closed streets as needed.

Weather:

Porchfest is rain or shine. In case of severe weather, please make your way indoors or to your vehicle until it passes. We will communicate through Porchfest’s social media if such conditions seem imminent.

Maps:

We are not printing maps/schedule booklets this year; it’s very expensive and creates a ton of paper waste. The performer schedule at http://www.porchfest.org/2023-schedule/ works well on mobile devices, or there’s a PDF schedule booklet on our website that you can print at home.

Hotline:

If you need help or information during Porchfest, you can reach the organizers at (607) 319-2551. You can call or text; texting is often better, as we’re out and about at a music event and the sound can make voice conversation more difficult. You can also always email us at info@porchfest.org

Vendors:

More than 20 artists and artisans will take part in our first-ever Makers Market during Porchfest! You’ll find everything from paintings to clothing, jewelry to baked goods, and more in Auburn Park throughout the afternoon.

We also have some wonderful food vendors lined up for PorchFEAST this year, at both Thompson Park and Auburn Park.

At Thompson Park:

Fittnell Barbeque
Silo Food Truck
Silo Fry Stand

At Auburn Park:

The Antlers
Cayuga Lake Creamery
Luna Food Truck
The Silver Spoon
Yxi’s Arepas & Gordito

Additionally, t-shirts, tote bags, and other merch featuring this year’s lovely Porchfest art by SensEmilia will be available from Muckles at Thompson Park. They screen print right there in the park, so you can pick your shirt color from their stock or bring your own!

Volunteer:

It takes a fleet of volunteers to help make Porchfest happen safely, and we still need a few more for this year. Please see the Volunteer page on our website to sign up to help for part of the day!

We are excited to announce our first Porchfest Makers Market, organized by Nicole Basta and Yen Ospina. It will tale place during Porchfest, Sunday, September 24th, from 12pm – 6pm in Auburn Park.

If you’re interested, please fill out the form below. We will be collecting vendor fees to go towards next year’s Porchfest. The deadline to sign up is, September 5th, 11:59pm EST.

Space is limited! If you are not picked for this event, we will have your information and will reach out to you next year. Don’t forget to mark if you’re interested in being part of the event in the future.

Artist Vendor fee : $30

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE APPLYING

Some things to keep in mind:

– You must have a 10 x 10 tent. (You can find them at AMAZON, TARGET, WALMART, AND CRAIGSLIST between $50-150). Consider borrowing from a neighbor or asking for a tent on a local gift economy! 

– You must bring tent weights. If you are a newbie to this, please let us know below!

– Please bring your own trash can /bag and take your trash with you at the end of the night

– You must provide your own tables.

– All tents are non-electric.

– No alcoholic beverages are permitted. Ithaca has an open container law that is strictly enforced.

– You must stay the full hours of the event (12 PM – 6 PM) 

– Each craft vendors will handle his/her/their own sales. Collecting and reporting of sales tax is each craft vendor’s responsibility.

– If you have been chosen, we will let you know by Saturday, September 9th and more info will be sent closer to the event with updated information. You will be expected to pay your vendor fee upon acceptance. 

– Please pass this along this form to any other maker in Ithaca and surrounding areas of Ithaca! 

Please be sure to check your emails for updates!

Thank you for submitting and wanting to be part of this event!

Con mucho amor, nicole v basta & Yen Ospina!

The performer signup period has ended, and we have begun work on the schedule. Check back here (or sign up for our mailing list) to see the schedule when it’s done.

We still need volunteers to make the festival go. Sign up here!

We’re excited to unveil this year’s Porchfest artwork, created by SensEmilia (Emily Hoyt)! We’ll have live t-shrt printing in Thompson Park again this year, as well as some other merch available — tote bags? keychains? what would you want to own from Porchfest?

We’re also extending the performer signup deadline by a few days to this Wednesday, August 23. If you haven’t signed up to play yet, please do so ASAP here.

Porchfest 2023 is taking place on Sunday, September 24 from noon to 6pm. Performer signups are open now through August 23. If you’re interested in performing, please make sure you have this information ready:
• The address where you’ll be performing. This may seem obvious, but make sure you have the homeowner’s permission first!
• No more than three performers at any single address. Give your neighbors a chance to shine too!
• The email addresses for all band members. We’ll use these to prevent scheduling bands that share members in the same time slot.
• What time slots you’re available for. Note that the 12-1pm time slot will be 100% acoustic, so if you’re using any amplification, don’t sign up for noon.
• Understand that Porchfest has many performances going on at once, and you’ll need to keep volume low so you’re not conflicting with nearby performances. If you absolutely need a ton of decibels to convey your transcendent rock-and-roll glory to the masses, we get it, but this may not be the festival for you.
• Note that no performances will be allowed on Cayuga, Lincoln, Tompkins or Hancock streets. We need to keep these streets open and free of crowds in case emergency vehicles need to get through. If you live on one of these streets, please find a friend’s porch to play on elsewhere in the neighborhood.

We urgently need volunteers. It takes a lot of people to make Porchfest happen safely. Most volunteers will be stationed at barricades near street closures, to redirect traffic and escort residents’ vehicles in and out as needed. Others will be stationed at our information tents, or circulate on bikes to help keep with crowds in the street and excessive performer volume. You can sign up for the first or second half of Porchfest, or the full event. If you can offer some of your day to help us make Porchfest go, please sign up here.

Interested in being a food vendor at Porchfest? We’ve got plenty of hungry music lovers to feed, and two locations for vendors to set up, so get in touch today. Apply here; the deadline is August 15.

We’re closing a few streets to traffic during Porchfest, where we’re placing food vendors or expect significant crowds. If you live on one of these blocks, consider parking your car on an open street nearby for the afternoon so you can come and go more easily:
• JAY STREET, from Cayuga to Tioga
• UTICA STREET, from Lincoln to Lewis
• YATES STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• YATES STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• E. MARSHALL STREET, from Utica to Aurora
• N. TIOGA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• N. AURORA STREET, from Tompkins to Farm
• W. MARSHALL STREET, and LAKE AVE from Marshall to Yates
• AUBURN STREET, from Jay to Dey
• ADAMS STREET, from Dey to Auburn
• W. LEWIS ST

Questions? Comments? Existential dilemmas? You can reach Porchfest organizers Lesley Greene and Andy Adelewitz at info@porchfest.org

Porchfest wouldn’t happen without lots of volunteers. Can you be one of them? Check out the volunteer page to learn more and sign up!