For the Miami Valley Today

TROY —The Troy, Ohio PorchFest will returning next week on Saturday, Sept. 11, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the festival will feature lively music from 40 bands, along unique items to shop from artisan and non-profit vendors.

The Artisan Tent Village will open at noon on Oxford Street between the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center and the Troy-Miami County Public Library. Over 20 artisan and non-profit vendors will be arranged down Oxford Street. Visitors will find booths by Barr’s Soapery, Revival Haus, Wood carved flutes by Slow Rise Music, and Barbie Lou’s knitted baby dolls, as well as wood carvings, woven garments, paintings, jewelry, glassworks, and more. Food vendors will include Riddle’s Texas Cowboy Bar-B-Que, Susie’s Big Dipper, Kona Ice, Eat My Taco Truck, Kiwanis snacks, Little Boijon Asian Cuisine, and more. Find menus and more at www.troyhayner.org/porchfest .

The festival will open at 11 a.m. and will be brought to life by the dynamic T.R.S.S. Drum Corps. This marching band features cymbals, snares, and big bass drums with over eight musicians marching and stirring up some amazing percussion. The band is great fun and an exciting way to begin the music.

The concerts begin at 1 p.m. in the footprint of the Southwest Historic District. There will be 40 bands playing 40 concerts on 40 porches during this festival. Each hour, seven new concerts will begin on seven new porches. This festival features a wide diversity of music with country, Salsa, rock, polka, chamber, rap, folk, and everything in between. You can get the festival brochure at www.troyhayner.org/porchfest and select your favorite bands. The Troy-Hayner Cultural Center recommends plotting your strategy ahead of time to see as many as your favorite concerts as possible. Bring a friend, grab some lunch, and take off walking the lovely Southwest Historic District.

The idea of PorchFest seems to have begun in Ithaca, New York in 2007. You will find these neighborhood festivals popping up all over the county, from coast to coast. The Troy, Ohio PorchFest began in 2019 when Linda Tatarian, a local musician, and Terrilynn Meece bumped into one another at the Dayton PorchFest. “We could make this happen in Troy,“ they thought!

Meece is the music manager at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center, which funds and backs the project. She said, “Porchfest is unique because it takes the whole community to make it successful. In addition to the resources at the Hayner, there are hundreds of local folks involved in bringing this festival to life. It is community celebrating community. Troy is the perfect place to make this kind of magic.”