Yellow Springs Porchfest returns — now with more porches

• By Lauren Shows
• Published: September 17, 2026

Yellow Springs Porchfest will stretch a little farther this year. The free, villagewide music festival returns Saturday, Sept. 19, with 79 acts scheduled to perform on 50 porches, patios, yards and other outdoor spaces. Music will run from noon to 8 p.m., an hour later than in previous years.

The lineup is the largest in the history of the local event, which launched in 2018 and returned last year under the umbrella of the YS Arts Council with 69 performers on 39 porches. This year’s added hour was not necessarily part of the original plan, Porchfest coordinator David Seitz told the News last week. As volunteers worked through musician applications, the team found itself with more strong applicants than expected.

“There’s so many good ones,” Seitz recalled volunteer and area music connoisseur Evan Miller saying as the lineup came together. Seitz responded: “Why don’t we try another hour and see what happens?”

So that’s what organizers decided to do.

“Last year was getting [the festival] up again; this year we’re experimenting,” Seitz said.

With experimentation have come some new challenges; for one, the festival’s growth has made scheduling more complex. Some local musicians play in multiple bands, so the organizers tried to leave enough time between sets for players to move from one porch to another. They also aimed to limit sound overlap between nearby performances, honor requests from hosts where possible and offer a mix of musical styles throughout the day.

The result is a schedule with as many as 10 performances happening simultaneously during some hours — which means a lot of options for music-lovers. Volunteers said Porchfest has never been designed for listeners to hear every act; audiences move in and out, sometimes gathering in large crowds and sometimes forming small clusters in front yards.

Volunteer Leah Mendenhall, who has participated in Porchfest as both a musician and organizer since 2019, said she’s watched whole audiences turn over during a single set.

“We had one in the beginning, and by the end we had a totally different crowd,” she said.

The volunteer team also continues to prioritize musicians with ties to Yellow Springs: “If a [band] member lives in Yellow Springs or works in Yellow Springs, that’s kind of a no-brainer,” volunteer Niki Foor said.

And Porchfest remains a place where newer local musicians can find an audience; with that in mind, Mendenhall, who has played every local Porchfest since 2019, said she decided to sit out this year as a performer and focus on running the event.

“The original idea behind [Porchfest] was to help people who don’t get to play all the time … get to play and support them,” she said.

To that end, YS Arts Council President Valerie Blackwell-Truitt said the event’s emphasis on supporting performers is closely aligned with the organization’s work in general.

“Part of our mission and vision is to be there to enhance cultural awareness, education; we really want to be there to help support artists, and what better way to support artists in YS and surrounding communities than Porchfest?” she said.

Seitz said the team of coordinators is also focused on the long-term sustainability of the event by keeping expenses low and materials reusable — the event’s reusable yard signs include some that date back to the very first year — so that more of the money raised through sponsorships can go toward paying musicians. Solar power will also return on a smaller scale after being highlighted at last year’s event; Seitz said the team expects about 10 of this year’s 50 porches to use solar power.

Though Porchfest has gotten bigger this year, Seitz said the event can’t expand indefinitely without changing its walkability, which remains one of its defining qualities. At 79 acts spread across eight hours, he added, the festival may have reached its ceiling.

“I think we are at the limit,” he said.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean future Porchfests will have to match this year’s size; the volunteer team plans to assess the event after it’s over, as it did last year, and consider whether a somewhat smaller festival might serve local listeners just as well. In the meantime, Seitz, Mendenhall and Foor said the team of volunteers who have grown up around the last two years of events works well together and enjoys the time they put in under the YS Arts Council’s aegis to bring the beloved event to the village.

“I’ve made new friends,” Foor said. “Before this, I didn’t know Leah. I didn’t know [fellow volunteer] Margi [Anderson], I didn’t know David [Seitz] before. And now after a couple years working together, it’s cool. It’s fun.”

Blackwell-Truitt said last year’s return also demonstrated the event’s ability to bring people back into contact with one another.

“I think last year was so successful, with people in the community coming together, maybe people you haven’t seen in a while, hanging out from one porch to the next,” she said. “Music is a connector; it crosses racial, socioeconomic, educational boundaries, all these constructs we have in our country. What more can you ask for?”

Porchfest will be held rain or shine Saturday, Sept. 19, noon–8 p.m. A full schedule and map are included as an insert in this week’s News; both are also available at http://www.ysporchfest.com

Ed. note: The writer is scheduled to perform at this year’s Porchfest with a band of friends under a name that will not be disclosed within these pages.

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