Picture a small-town porch. Maybe there’s a rocking chair, quaint decor, and scattered flowerpots to greet neighbors who could come by to borrow sugar. Maybe you see yourself with a book or craft in hand, relaxing as you take in the rhythm of the neighborhood. Perhaps someone nearby is playing the banjo or humming a tune — and you rock back and forth as you settle in to enjoy the day.
If experiencing music in a similar setting feels like your jam, you’ll want to make your way over to the Gifford Park neighborhood for Porchfest OMA on Sunday, Oct. 4.
Porchfest celebrates the local creative community through music and art. Instead of traditional stages, neighbors open up their porches and stoops for performances. These “stages” are scattered throughout the neighborhood, and it’s set up like an art walk of sorts. Part of the fun is meandering from one band to the next.
The daytime festival is celebrating its 10th year and will feature over 90 performances across 13 stages. It’s free to attend, and thanks to sponsors and an anonymous donor, the bulk of its budget goes back to local creatives.
The event organizer, Emily Cox, was inspired to bring the grassroots event to Omaha 10 years ago after first learning about it through Hear Nebraska. She read its review on a Porchfest event that Lincoln hosted, and was captivated.
She discovered that it was actually a national event that got its start in a small neighborhood in Ithaca, New York in 2007, and it had been expanding to other communities ever since. She immediately contacted the organizers to learn more.
“I reached out to Ithaca, and was just like, ‘Hey, can I do one in Omaha?’” Cox said. “And they’re like, ‘Yeah, do whatever you want. Just let us know the date, and we’ll put it on our website.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, great.’”
But there were logistics to work out. She knew she couldn’t organize the event alone, and she needed to find the perfect host neighborhood. She had a couple areas in mind, and then a friend pointed her toward Gifford Park.
“He’s like, ‘There’s this really cute neighborhood in Omaha called Gifford Park. They have this Friday night market, and they’re just a really involved neighborhood,’” Cox said.
Gifford Park is home to several community events, and its neighborhood association has been committed to preserving and uplifting the community for decades.
It sounded like the ideal spot, so Cox went to one of their Friday night markets. She was struck by its welcoming, connected vibe.
“It reminds me of a small town,” she said.
And the cherry on top? There were plenty of beautiful porches.
Between its neighborly feel, camaraderie among residents, and engaged nearby businesses, Gifford Park became the home of Omaha’s Porchfest.
While the festival itself may have a laid-back atmosphere, organizing it each year involves orchestrating a lot of moving pieces. Cox and other volunteers start planning about six months in advance.
“I just found the right people who would help me make this happen,” Cox said.
She also found the right porches. Cox says porch hosts enjoy hosting and it can even become competitive with porches vying to outdo the others by adding toys to their lawn, sidewalk chalk, or yard games.
“Everyone gets more involved each year. And it’s really fun to see,” Cox said.
One unpredictable element can be the weather, and they’ve run into some snags in the past.
“One year it was like sleeting, so we postponed it,” Cox recalled. “And then the next weekend it snowed.”
Still, one of Cox’s favorite festival moments came during unfavorable weather.
She recalled a time when it started to rain, so she took refuge under a tree. She was standing there eating a hot dog when the sky suddenly unleashed a torrential downpour and everything got drenched.
Sanner performs on a stoop during Porchfest.
People began to leave, but some of the unplugged acts kept playing. With thunder rolling in the background, they played their hearts out, and it made for an unforgettable moment for the crowd that stayed. It was Porchfest’s own “Bush playing ‘Glycerine’ in the rain at MTV Spring Break 1996” moment.
Although Porchfest started with a focus on folk and bluegrass music, today’s lineup spans a wide range of genres, along with poetry, comedy, art and dance. Organizers have broadened the festival over time to make room for a fresh mix of performers each year.
Cox said while the event is fun to grow, she wants to keep it manageable and doesn’t want it to lose its grassroots appeal.
“Otherwise, if it becomes work for all of us, we’re not going to want to do it anymore because we’re all just volunteers,” Cox said. “I think we’re maxed out now with our 13 porches. That’s enough. Now I just want to add more activities or different types of performances. So, that’s our growth mechanism, in my opinion.”
In the festival’s early years, it was all acoustic, but Cox said that started to limit who could play.
“Over time, it was, ‘Don’t bring anything.’ Then it was, ‘You can bring a small amp if you need to.’ Then it was, ‘Okay, you can have a drummer, but they can’t amplify.’ Then it was, ‘Okay, you can bring one speaker on a stick. Okay, we’ll provide one PA at this one porch.’ And now it’s like almost every porch is amplified on some level,” Cox said.
Aside from A/V needs, the map of who plays where also gets careful consideration. You can’t have one host too close to another or you get competing sounds. And you need to place certain acts on certain porches that accommodate their setups.
Cox determines which performances to include on the lineup and how to arrange the schedule. She looks at genre diversity, band composition and representation, who has played in the past, and who is new.
This year’s musicians include Hector Anchondo, Jordan And The Jeg Legs, Matt Cox, Paper Canaries, Pflames, QuiLt, Scott Severin & Stateleigh Holmes, and The Prairie Gators. There will also be porches dedicated to poetry, comedy, art, and even an open mic.
Cox said she hopes newcomers will enjoy the variety and see something new that they haven’t been able to experience in the past.
In addition to performances, there will be food trucks, merchants, pumpkin painting, face painting, henna, tarot reading, and other enrichment activities. All festivities will take place between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Cox recommends bringing water, a cooler, comfortable shoes, a blanket, and an umbrella for shade or rain. There will be access to food, drinks, and restrooms. Free parking is available, and while the event is walkable, there will also be several pedicabs biking around to help people porch hop.
It’s a festival that takes months for a group of all-volunteer organizers to plan, but Cox says 10 years in, she doesn’t know how she could ever walk away from it.
“I just like giving that platform to all these different creative people, because my mind is so blown by how much talent we have in this city,” she said. “ I like being that behind-the-scenes supporter of people who are creative because I’m not.”
At the end of the day, Cox said Porchfest is a “feel-good” event that people get involved with simply because they like it and want to support it.
“It’s pretty heartwarming that, you know, people do care,” she said. “There are good people out there still.”