By Matt Clevenger

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TROY — A total of 40 different bands will perform on porches throughout downtown Troy’s Southwest Historic District on Saturday, Sept. 9, during the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center’s annual Porchfest community concert event.

“We’ve got 40 bands,” Troy-Hayner Cultural Center music manager Terrilynn Meece said. “We had to double-up a couple of porches.”

Bands will represent a wide variety of styles and musical genres, ranging from pop music and oldies to folk, blues, hip-hop and rock. Local artists Rum River Blend will present a special children’s music show, and other acts will include salsa music, polka and an interactive drum circle. The event will also include food trucks, musical performances and an artisan tent village at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center.

“What a crazy wonderful variety we have this year,” Meece said.

“There’s a group called Acoustic Roots that is going to do campfire sing-along type music,” she said. “There is lots of good country music, and bluegrass; we’ve got some great bluegrass bands.”

Other groups will include Lemongrass, Shady Pines, Tyler Fairborn, Grey Cloud Nine, the Nautical Theme, Red Lion, Rusted Reserve, TINO and Fin-Tan. Singer-songwriters Jay Cullis and Corey Breth will also perform during Porchfest, among others.

T.R.R.S. Drum Corps will start the festivities at 10:30 a.m. with a performance during opening ceremonies at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center. The food court and artisan tent village will open at 11 a.m., and concerts will take place on porches at designated homes throughout the Southwest Historic District, starting at 12 p.m., with up to seven new concerts each hour.

The Dianne Coble Ensemble will close out the day with a concert at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center starting at 6 p.m.

“I think of it as a choir,” Meece said. “She’s going to bring like 12 vocalists; they’re going to perform at the Hayner as our closing concert, to kind of draw everybody back here and just celebrate the day.”

Food trucks at the Hayner will include Kona Ice, Mucci’s Sweet Treats, Timeless Tacos, Susie’s Big Dipper and Wholly Smokes BBQ, which will also accept orders through an app on guests phones.

“They allow you to order food on your phone, and then go pick it up,” Meece said.

Artisan tents will feature a wide variety of art and craft items, including jewelry, décor, woven and knit items, soap, woodcarvings and other items.

“We got a bunch of great artists this year in our artisan tent village,” Meece said. “We’ve got 18 artisan tents.”

Pottery, toys and other items will also be available.

“We have a beautiful glass-work artist too, she’s got some nice jewelry and things like that,” Meece said.

Attendance at Porchfest is hard to count, but Meece said over 1,000 guests are expected to attend the concerts.

“It’s hard to count, but every year it grows,” she said. “We figure there were about 1,000 people there the first year, and every year it grows 20-25 percent.”

Sponsors for this year’s Porchfest include Edison Community College, Premier Health, and Upper Valley Hearing and Balance.

“We have three main sponsors who have been so great about supporting us every year,” Meece said. “They really provide the money to get all these programs launched. In addition to that we have sponsors for every porch to help support the artists, so that we can actually pay the artists something for coming out, and make sure we at least get them fed.”

A total of 40 sponsors are supporting the individual concerts, and Perigo will serve as the sponsor for the concert presented on the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center porch. More information can be found online at www.troyhayner.org.

“What we really want to do is honor our regional musicians,” Meece said. “We really want to hear what our musicians are doing.”

“A large portion of this festival is just being community and being good neighbors,” she said. “The people in the Southwest Historic District make the festival float, and make it come alive.”