Ithaca’s 18th annual Porchfest is happening Sunday, September 20, and you can get involved now!
Sign up to perform at Porchfest Everyone’s welcome, as long as you agree to our rules and sign up before the August 15 deadline.
Volunteer at Porchfest It takes a fleet of volunteers to help Porchfest run safely and efficiently. Shifts are only two hours long, so you’ll have plenty of time left to enjoy the music too!
Vend at Porchfest Applications are open now for our fourth annual Makers Market. Deadline is August 20.
The food vendor application is here! Deadline is August 10.
Donate to Porchfest Porchfest is funded in part by a Tompkins County Community Celebrations grant, as well as a percentage of merchandise sales and fees from vendors. The rest of our funding comes from the generosity of our neighbors who love the event and want it to keep happening. Our expenses include things like insurance, permits, private security, portable restroom facilities, and various other equipment and personnel, and your support helps us continue doing this crazy thing every year!
This year’s beautiful Porchfest artwork was created by Kelby Woodside! If you love it as much as we do, it’ll be available on t-shirts, tote bags and more at Porchfest and afterward.
Any questions, comments, compliments or complaints can be sent to Porchfest’s organizers at info@porchfest.org
Porchfest is hosting a sign painting party! 🎨 Make your own Porchfest sign or give your old sign new life at Auburn Park on September 7th from 10am-1pm. Please bring your surplus household paint and old signs if you have them! We will have limited materials.
Ithaca’s 17th annual Porchfest is happening Sunday, September 21, and you can get involved now!
Sign up to perform at Porchfest Everyone’s welcome, as long as you agree to our rules and sign up before the August 21 deadline.
Volunteer at Porchfest It takes a fleet of volunteers to help Porchfest run safely and efficiently. Shifts are only two hours long, so you’ll have plenty of time left to enjoy the music too!
Donate to Porchfest Porchfest is funded in part by a Tompkins County Community Celebrations grant, as well as a percentage of merchandise sales and fees from vendors. The rest of our funding comes from the generosity of our neighbors who love the event and want it to keep happening. Our expenses include things like insurance, permits, private security, portable restroom facilities, and various other equipment and personnel, and your support helps us continue doing this crazy thing every year!
This year’s beautiful Porchfest artwork was created by Julian Plum! If you love it as much as we do, it’ll be available on t-shirts, tote bags and more at Porchfest and afterward.
We’re pleased to partner with WSKG again this year! Look for them around our information tent in Thompson Park during Porchfest.
Any questions, comments, compliments or complaints can be sent to Porchfest’s organizers at info@porchfest.org
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….
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
Porchfest 2024 street closure map
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.
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.
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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.
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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!
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:
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:
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.)
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
(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.
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!
