The Front Porch Music Festival

The Harveys and the Plattes organize a small music festival in their Longfellow neighborhood every year. Neighbors offer up their porches as stages for local musicians, and festival goers enjoy live music and treats from charming neighborhood stands. Trevor Harvey describes the festival as “music not for profit, but for community building”; anyone can participate in the space, with no stage, just porches and yards.

Inspired by the Waterhill Festival in Ann Arbor, they established the Front Porch Music Festival in 2015. With their diverse backgrounds in music, they understood the power it has to bring people together.

The organizers’ start was simple. They fliered houses and made a website to share their idea. Then went door to door, asking neighbors to participate. They announced their vision in the neighborhood newsletter and asked the City for funding through their Longfellow Neighborhood Association. The festival successfully provided a space for community building, and the neighborhood wanted to see it continue. The Plattes and Harveys mention that neighbors, players, and porch folks ask about the festival every year, with more neighbors offering their porches and more performers reaching out for a chance to play.

But learning from the Waterhill Festival, the organizers were also concerned about creating something sustainable. They want to keep the festival neighborhood-grounded while still creating that sense of openness and inclusion.

They’ve achieved this in various ways:

• Most performers have a connection to the Longfellow neighborhood.
• They recognize that they don’t need to expand the festival every year and subscribe to a growth narrative. This means the festival is not imposing on the whole neighborhood and is respectful of neighbors not interested in participating.
• They are committed to maintaining the organic nature of the program to keep it achievable and neighbors engaged.

Check out the Front Porch Festival next fall at the Longfellow neighborhood or at https://frontporchmusicfestival.com/.