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Porchfest 2023 will be held on Sunday, September 24 from noon to 6 PM. Signups will begin in the next few weeks. Sign up for our mailing list to make sure you know when signups open!

Join us this Sunday, Sept 25, from noon until 6 PM, for the long-awaited revival of Porchfest, Ithaca’s beloved neighborhood music festival!

Porchfest 2022: Performers | Schedule | Map | Street Closures

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
• 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
• CASCADILLA AVE (north side only)

Additionally, N. TIOGA STREET will be closed from Farm to Court during the 5-6 pm hour only, while Fall Creek Brass Band perform on the bridge.

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. Please use our mobile schedule at porchfest.org/m on your phone, 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) 269-5106. 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:

We 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 French Fries
Cayuga Lake Creamery

At Auburn Park:
Adelina’s Pizza
Yxi’s Arepas & Gordito
Luna Inspired Street Food

Additionally, t-shirts, tote bags, and other merch 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!

Porchfest 2022 will happen on Sunday, September 25 from 12 PM to 6 PM in Ithaca’s Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods!

It’s an incredible relief and joy to type those words to you. It’s been three years since the last Porchfest in Ithaca, and we’ve all been through some stuff. It feels like we need a nice, big, outdoor community celebration more than ever before. So let’s go!

Performer signups are open now through August 28. Sign up here. 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: https://forms.gle/2PNJTmYL5rAXpwi69

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 20: https://forms.gle/1uyJPj9fk22x7D5a8

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

This year’s art is by Patty Sipman:

We’re sad to say that we’re not going to move forward with planning Porchfest for this year.

The pandemic has had a significant impact on City of Ithaca staffing, and city and state regulations about public gatherings continue to change. The result has been extensive delays to the permitting process and a host of new requirements that have left us feeling unable to organize Porchfest in the time we have left.

If we had three months or more to get through the new hurdles, it might be possible. But in 40 days, with approval still not certain and all other facets of organizing the festival still to be completed, it’s insurmountable.

We’ll miss Porchfest this year as much as you will, believe us. We’ll be taking some time to meet with the city and figure out whether we can come back next year — and what that’ll look like if we do. It’ll certainly require some extra hands, so if you’re interested in joining the Porchfest organizing team, please drop us a line!

In the meantime, please find other ways to embrace and support Ithaca’s wonderful music and performance community. Go to a show — there are plenty of outdoor concerts happening this summer (and indoor, if you feel safe attending). Buy a local band’s album, via CD or download. Spread the word about local music you love. Or just pick a pleasant afternoon and play some music on your porch, for whomever happens by — that’s how Porchfest started!

Lesley & Andy

Ithaca’s 13th Annual Porchfest Coming Sept. 22

174 Performers Will Hit the Porches of Fall Creek & Northside

September 4, 2019 — Ithaca’s 13th annual Porchfest will bring live music to the porches of the Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods on Sunday, September 22, from noon until 6 PM. This year’s edition will feature 174 performers at 102 locations, primarily porches but also including Thompson Park and several local businesses and churches. See page 3 for a full list of performers. Porchfest is sponsored by INHS.

Porchfest will also feature PorchFEAST, a lineup of local food trucks and vendors. PorchFEAST will have two locations:
• Silo Food Truck (fried chicken, mac & cheese and more) and The Good Truck (tacos, rice bowls, salads, more) will be located at Thompson Park (corner of Cayuga + Marshall streets).
• Luna (inspired street food), Eat the Foood (gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches) and Casca Deli (pierogis) will be located at Auburn Park (corner of Auburn + Dey streets).
Additional vendors may be added.

Streets will be closed throughout most of Fall Creek for this year’s event, with an area bounded by Cayuga, Lincoln, Linn and Court streets closed to motor vehicles for all six hours (except Tompkins Street, which will remain open to motor vehicles). Additionally, West Marshall Street and West Lewis Street will be closed, along with portions of Auburn Street, Willow Avenue and Adams Street. See page 2 for a map of street closures.

Porchfest’s official artwork has, since the beginning, featured an original painting or illustration by a local artist each year. The 2019 artwork was created by Lily Armstrong-Davies. Her original illustration, along with most other years’ original works by Nina Widger, Jim Garmhausen, Rosemary Adelewitz, and Anneke van Renesse, will be displayed starting September 6, and throughout the rest of the month, in a gallery show at Ithaca Coffee Company at Gateway Commons (311 E Green St).

Porchfest requires a signficant number of volunteers to staff street closure barricades, and more are needed for this year. Volunteers receive a $5 voucher for either PorchFEAST food vendors or Porchfest t-shirts, which are screen printed on-site by Muckles Ink. Anyone interested in volunteering for part of Porchfest is strongly encouraged to sign up at porchfest.org/volunteer.

The first Porchfest was founded in Ithaca in 2007 by Fall Creek neighbors Lesley Greene and Gretchen Hildreth. The idea has since spread to more than 130 other cities around North America, with new events in 2019 in Chicago, IL; Kansas City, MO; Hartford, CT; South Buffalo, NY; Reading, MA; Henderson, KY; Callicoon, NY; Oak Park, IL; and Swampscott, MA. Porchfest also expanded outside North America for the first time, with the inaugural Porchfest in Morpeth, Australia taking place on August 31. Andy Adelewitz joined the Ithaca organizing team in 2013, and Hildreth amicably stepped away from her role in Porchfest after the 2018 event.

About INHS
Founded in 1976 as a partnership between residents, funders, and local government, INHS is a nonprofit community development corporation affiliated with NeighborWorks® America. The INHS mission is to help people of modest incomes obtain affordable housing on a long-term basis. INHS is committed to creating energy-efficient housing and sustainable communities that benefit residents of all income levels and occupations. Its service area includes Tompkins County and its six contiguous counties.

• • •

Porchfest 2019 Street Closures:

• Utica, Tioga and Aurora streets, from Lincoln St to Court St as well as all cross streets in this area except Tompkins
• W Marshall St & Willow Ave from Marshall St to Yates St
• Auburn St from Dey St to Jay St
• W Lewis St from Auburn St to Cayuga St
• Adams St from Dey St to Auburn St

Cayuga St, Tompkins St, Hancock St and Lincoln St will all remain open to motor vehicle traffic.

• • •

Porchfest 2019 Performers:

18 Strings of Love
Abby Sullivan
Acoustic Rust
AfterMarket
Ageless Jazz Band
Alan Rose
Alec James
Alex Cano
Alex VanTassel
Alexander Bradshaw Band
Alison Wahl
The Analogue Sons
Auntie Emo’s ‘Ukulele Showcase
Auntie Emo’s Ukulelese as a Second Language
The Auroras
Bagelomics
The Bemus Point and Witch on Horseback
Better Weather String Band
The Big Picture
Bird-In-Hand Stringband
Bob Keefe and the Surf Renegades
Bob Roberts Calamity
The Catscratchers
Cerebral Vortex
Chickenwire Parachute
The Chipped Beef Trio
Choroes do Ithaca
Cielle
Cisco Large and The Soul Benders
Corner Soul
Cozmic Theo
Cumbia Amazonica
Damn Yanquis
Daniel Kaiya
Dapper Dan
The Darts
David Graybeard Band
Dean’s Kids
Devinne Meyers
Dex & Liam
DFLT and Rob Snyder
Diana Leigh Trio
Dickie Starfish Allstars
Djug Django
Dom Cicchetti
Doolin O’Dey
DQ Rhythm ‘n Improv Crew
Dylan Pakkala / Electric Lines
Elisa S. Keeler
Ella / Tryggvi
Erin + The Backwoods Blues Project
Fall Creek Brass Band
Fall creek string quartet
Fall Crickers Jug Band
Feed the Fire!
Flight Performing Arts
FLUNK SCHOOL with Friends.
Flute Song
The Flywheels
Glitter Skulls Techno
Good Áine
The Grady Girls
Grassanova
Guardians of The Glade
Gunpoets
Gus Lucas
Hal & Addy
Hannah Ruth
Hanzolo
The Hot Flashes
ICO Brass Quintet
The ilium works
Insolent Cur Acoustic Duo
Isaac Sharp – Guitarist
Ithaca Gay Men’s Chorus
Ithaca Shape Note
J Gibson
Jake and the Nowhere
Janet Batch
JazzHappensBand
Jen Cork
Jen Rafferty
Jesse Collins Quartet
Jim Wells and Reka Wells
Jody Kessler
Jon and Shelly Pargh
JP and The EasyTigers
Julia Felice and the Whiskey Crisis
Justice and Shamanpoor
Kai Kasian and The Big Brother
Kitestring
La Llorona
Lady Borderhop
Laila Belle TRIO w/ Amy Puryear, Ward Puryear & Jason Shegogue
Leo and the Maydays
The Littlest Birds
Lloyd’s Boys
The Long Now
The Love Me Backs
Lucky Old Sun
Luke G.
Mad Cow Tippers
Madden/Waterman
Mama Rabwa
Martha Armstrong and friends
Metasequoia
Mighty Jet Band
Mijail Martinez & The Cantina Ramblers
Modern Instincts
Mosaic Foundation
Muse Loops
Naomi Sommers
NEO Project
Nobody et al.
Noon Fifteen
Northside Stringband
Not From Wisconsin
OA
Odyssey Choir
Off the Rails
Oh Yeah
One Heart Community Drumming
Original Cornell Syncopators
Our Lord’s Temple Choir
Patchwork Down
The Pelotones
Pine Box
PIPERVENTILATORS
Quail
Quiet Wanderer
Rachel Beverly
Rats With Bats
Rebel fire with Akuma Roots
Rena Guinn
Richie Holtz and friends
Richie Stearns and Friends
Richie Stearns with Long John and the Tights
Road Man
rose et al.
Rose Fritzky-Randolph and Friends
The Rudiments
Rustic Lace
Sabbathwind
Samba na Varanda
Sandbox
Seneca Street Recorders
Shinichi and the ITEs
Singing Notes and Slinging Jokes
SingTrece
The Small Kings
Sonic Rust
Spy Donkey
Stone’s Throw Creek
Strange Heavy
Strong Maybe
The sunny weather
Taksim
That Silvery Vagabond
There’s Always Room for Cello!
Thom Dunn and the Roland High Life
The Three Ravens
Thru Spectrums
Timothy Weber
Travis Knapp Band
Trillium
Tru Bleu
Tyranical Vegetable
Uncommon Wine – The Hybrid Grape Show
Unitarian Universalist Ukulele Union (UUUU)
Vee Da Bee
¡Viva Mayhem!
Wells
Wildflwr
Wonder(Solo)Monday

# # #

Forgot to sign up your band? Didn’t get it around to it yet? Just formed a band yesterday and wanna debut it at Porchfest?

Well, you’re in luck, friend: We have extended the Porchfest 2019 performer deadline through August 7 to allow a few more acts to get in on the action.

Signup to play here:
http://www.porchfest.org/2019-signup/

And hey, while we have you: sign up for a volunteer shift here:
http://www.porchfest.org/volunteer/

That’s all. Stay cool, Ithaca.

– Porchfest

Hello, neighbors & noisemakers,

The City of Ithaca is requiring that Porchfest (Sunday, Sept 22) work a bit differently this year, and we’d like your thoughts on the changes.

The city’s Special Events Team is concerned about pedestrians and audiences congregating in streets that are open to traffic during Porchfest. It’s their #1 safety concern, and ours as well. We’ve had some close calls with reckless drivers over the years, and it’s a scary thing. So, the Special Events Team has required that we make some changes to the layout of Porchfest, or else we’d be denied a permit for this year.

The plan is to close a large section of Fall Creek to vehicular traffic, bordered by E Lincoln Street on the north, Cayuga and Aurora streets on the west and east, and Farm Street on the south. This will ensure that crowds are free to move through the streets throughout the busy core of Porchfest, along Tioga and Utica Streets and all cross streets between Lincoln and Farm (except Tompkins). (If you live in that zone and need to get your vehicle in or out during Porchfest, we plan to have volunteers available as always to escort you.) We will also, as we have the last couple of years, close two blocks of Auburn Street, from Hancock to Jay; and W Marshall St / Willow Ave around Thompson Park, to accommodate food trucks and busy nearby performances. (See map below.)

Meanwhile, Cayuga, Aurora, Lincoln and Tompkins streets will be open to traffic, and closed to performances. This will ensure that the main thoroughfares through the neighborhood are open to traffic, and especially emergency vehicles, without crowds of stationary music lovers standing in the streets. We realize this will affect many performers who live on these streets or have had a long-standing porch to play on there. But as Porchfest’s popularity has grown, so have the crowds, and it has become too dangerous to continue allowing this mixture of audiences and vehicular traffic on the busiest streets.

This is where you come in. Our neighbors in Fall Creek, and our Porchfest performers, all have a huge stake in Porchfest. Do you love these changes? Do you hate them? Do you have ideas or thoughts that we should hear? We’re all ears. Please visit our survey here.

We really need your feedback, because this is a big change for Porchfest.

(Oh, and because many of you will be wondering: we expect to open performer signups on July 1.)

Here’s what this year’s tentative map looks like:

Save the date! Porchfest returns to Ithaca’s Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods on Sunday, September 24, 2017.

Performer signups will open on August 1.

More soon!

Ithaca’s 10th annual Porchfest is this Sunday, September 18, from 12-6 PM. Here’s everything you need to know!

* Who’s performing, where and when?

Performer list + descriptions
Schedule by time
Interactive map

We will also, as always, have printed map + schedule booklets available for free at Thompson Park, as well as our volunteers around the neighborhood.

And you can check the schedule on your phone! Go to http://porchfest.org/m for a mobile device-friendly version. (It’s not up just yet, though, so don’t panic if you still see last year’s schedule there in the next day or two.)

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* Will there be an opportunity to paint a giant Porchfest mural in the middle of a Fall Creek street?

Glad you asked! To celebrate Ithaca’s 10th annual Porchfest this Sunday, we’re painting the intersection of Auburn, Lewis and Adams streets with a lovely Porchfest mural. It was designed by the wonderful Nina Widger, whose paintings were the official Porchfest artwork for our first seven years.

We hope many people will help make this happen. From 8 AM to 11 AM, we’ll be using tiny rollers to paint the outlines, and then from 11 AM – 4 PM we’ll be filling them in with many beautiful colors.

We need painters of all ages to help with both portions of the project! Send an email to ninawidger@gmail.com to sign up to paint. Or, if you forget to sign up, just come over to Lewis and Auburn on Sunday and join in. Wear clothes that you don’t mind getting paint on, and bring knee pads if you’ve got ’em.

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* Will there be anything to eat?

Yep! There will be food trucks and vendors at various locations around the neighborhood, especially near Thompson Park. Additionally, the Fall Creek Elementary School PTA will have a roving bake sale all afternoon, and there will be a lemonade stand and bake sale at 102 Franklin St with proceeds benefitting the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes. And the Unitarian Church at 306 N Aurora St will serve ice cream from noon until 2 PM.

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* What about restrooms?

There will be port-a-johns at the following locations:
– Thompson Park (corner of Cayuga + Marshall)
– Auburn Park (corner of Auburn + Adams)
– Fall Creek Elementary School (corner of King + Linn)
– Northstar House (202 E Falls St)

Additionally, Tabernacle Baptist Church, at the corner of Cayuga and Lincoln streets, will make its restrooms available to the public for the duration of Porchfest. And the Unitarian Church at 306 N Aurora St will make its restrooms available to the public from noon until 2 PM.

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* What streets will be closed?

The following sections of street will be closed to traffic from 12-6 PM on Sunday:
– Auburn St between W Lincoln St and Dey St
– Auburn St between W Tompkins St and W Yates St
– from Willow Ave and W Yates St to W Marshall St and N Cayuga St
– Cascadilla Ave from N Cayuga St to N Tioga St
– N Tioga St from Cascadilla Ave to Farm St
– Utica St from E Lewis St to E Lincoln St
– Jay St from N Cayuga St to N Tioga St
– Linn St from King St to E Tompkins St

You can see a map of these street closures here.

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* Where can I buy a t-shirt?

We’re doing something new and super cool this year: Muckles’ Ink will be in Thompson Park screen-printing t-shirts right on the spot all afternoon! You can buy a blank shirt from them, or bring your own.

And hey, while we’re on the topic: donations are welcome too. Porchfest’s expenses include insurance, permit fees, map printing, t-shirts for volunteers, truck rental to set up traffic barricades, painting supplies, and more. Nobody involved in organizing Porchfest makes a dime, and in fact, there have been years where we’ve wound up making up the difference when Porchfest comes up a little short. So if you’ve got a few extra bucks to throw in the hat, we’d very much appreciate it. There will be a donation jar at the info table, or you can pay with a credit card or bank account via PayPal.

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* Where can I listen to Porchfest artists’ music before the big day (and during, and after)?

Listen to some of the 185 artists on a special “Ithaca Porchfest 2016” station on MegsRadio.fm before your wander around our neighborhood streets on Sunday afternoon. MegsRadio.fm is a locally-focused, personalized streaming radio player for Ithaca. It is similar to Pandora with customizable stations from artists and genres, but it mixes in music by local Ithaca-area artists. It is free to use, commercial-free, and being developed as a not-for-profit community project by students at Ithaca College and Cornell.

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* Hey, is the Ithaca College Founder’s Day Concert in the Park happening at the same time as Porchfest again this year?

Sure is! BUT, please note, they’ve moved the location from DeWitt Park to Ford Hall on IC’s campus, so it will no longer be walkable from Porchfest. More information here.

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* Whom can I contact if there’s a problem during Porchfest?

Is someone playing too loudly? Playing outside their scheduled time, and conflicting with other performers? Issues with traffic barricades? If you need to reach us during Porchfest, you can email info@porchfest.org or call or text this number: 607-269-5106. Any method will reach all three of us, and we’ll respond as soon as possible. (Texting often works better than calling, as we’re out enjoying the music too, and sometimes it’s hard to hear or speak during a performance.)

ITHACA, N.Y. — The tenth edition of Porchfest, an annual music festival celebrating the vital creative community of downtown Ithaca, NY, will take place on Sunday, September 18, 2016. Performers wishing to sign up can do so now through August 21 at porchfest.org/perform. Volunteers are also needed to help on the day of the event; sign up at porchfest.org/volunteer.

Founded in Ithaca in 2007 by Fall Creek neighbors Lesley Greene and Gretchen Hildreth, Porchfest has grown from 20 performers the first year to 180 in 2015. And following Ithaca’s lead, there are now at least 55 other Porchfests around the U.S. and Canada, including new events this year in Lafayette, LA; Bristol, VT; Niagara Falls, NY; Lincoln, NE; Philadelphia, PA; and several other cities.

The colorful illustration for this year’s Porchfest artwork was created by Rosemary Adelewitz (mother of Porchfest co-organizer Andy Adelewitz). It will be used in all Porchfest promotions and merchandise this year.

Porchfest 2015 is sponsored by longtime partner Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services, a non-profit community development corporation whose mission is to revitalize Ithaca’s neighborhoods, encouraging stability and diversity, and to help people of modest incomes obtain affordable housing on a long-term basis. INHS has recently partnered with Better Housing for Tompkins County, and together they are increasing quality housing opportunities for Tompkins County and beyond. More information at ithacanhs.org and betterhousingtc.org.