More than 200 bands/performers, 100 sites in Saturday’s festival

By Patrick Sawers

Across downtown Buffalo this weekend, the porches and the front lawns will come alive with the sound of local music.

Buffalo Porchfest 2025 – scheduled for Saturday, May 17 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. – is set to feature more than 200 bands, performing throughout the day on makeshift stages set up in over 100 different locations. The grassroots event is free and centered in the Elmwood Village, although its escalating popularity has driven the festival’s expansion into surrounding neighborhoods.

“Porchfest, in a lot of ways, is a truly Buffalo event,” said James Cichocki, executive director of the Elmwood Village Association. “It’s all local musicians, it’s in these walkable neighborhoods, you’re out there hanging out with your neighbors and seeing old friends and loving this great local music that you’re hearing. There’s a huge diversity of music, and I think that all of that combines to make it a really Buffalo-style event.”

The festival, now in its 13^th year, relies on individual community members making their outdoor spaces available to a variety of musical acts, all coordinated by Cichocki to produce a day-long celebration of music and local culture.

CLICK TO GO TO INTERACTIVE MAP

“We have, for instance, a woman who empties out her garage and the bands play out of her garage, we have some people who put up tents and the bands play out of tents,” Cichocki said. “But it’s grown beyond just a traditional Porchfest. It’s on the patios of businesses, you’ll see a full day of programming out on the patio of Lexington Co-op, a full day of programming out on the patio of Elmwood Taco & Subs, there’s programming out on the patio of Cole’s in the evening, programming over at the Place in the evening. So the businesses participate, the homeowners participate. We even have people set up playing at two of the churches.”

The annual event has become a springtime favorite amongst Western New Yorkers, and Cichocki noted that it has grown in size every year since its inception.

“The dust never truly settles until one o’clock on the day of Porchfest,” he said, “but currently it looks like we have 219 bands at 112 venues. That’s the biggest it’s ever been, and it has expanded beyond the Elmwood Village. We have porches now on the West Side, we have porches in Allentown, this year I know the Richardson Complex will be having events all day.”

Porchfest has come a long way since its inaugural event back in 2013. Cichocki wasn’t on hand then – he joined the Elmwood Village Association five years ago – but certainly the event has blossomed and flourished under his direction. It’s local origins, however, were humble but enthusiastic.

“From what I am told,” he said, “someone in Buffalo saw a Porchfest in Ithaca, which is where it originated, and they thought, ‘what a great idea that would be for the Elmwood neighborhood,’ because the neighborhood is so walkable and so many of those homes have those great big, beautiful porches. And so they decided to just kind of put together a little tiny Porchfest that first year. There were only like a dozen bands on a handful of porches, and it’s grown exponentially since then.”

Cichocki is responsible for all the coordinating and all the scheduling – a grueling task, he conceded, but one well worth the effort.

“There’s a lot of logistics that go into it,” he said, “and it’s a big process, matching bands with porches and making sure that you don’t have two bands playing on porches that are next to each other at the same time, all of that type of stuff. It’s a ton of work for the guy who has to do all the arrangements, but once that work is done it’s a really great afternoon. You can walk down one street and hear five different genres of music.”

With so many musical acts to enjoy, a certain amount of preparation will help attendees make the most of the festival. To that end, the Elmwood Village Association has very helpfully produced an online schedule and interactive guide to the day’s entertainment.

“We’ve built a map on our website,” Cichocki noted, “where you’ll be able to click on a little dot and see who’s playing there and when.”

The growing success of this event, he added, has led to the development of similar ones in nearby communities, which means additional afternoons of local outdoor music should soon be coming down the pike.

“There will be two new Porchfests this year, not on the same day,” said Cichocki. “We’re working with folks in the Parkside area, and also on the East Side about starting their own Porchfests as well. There’s Porchfests now in Kenmore, Tonawanda, South Buffalo, and it’s just growing into every little neighborhood.”

The event is rain or shine, he said, so be prepared to dress accordingly and to bring an umbrella if necessary. Hopefully, though, history remains consistent on that score.

“We’ve been blessed with perfect weather every year except two years ago,” Cichocki recalled. “Two years ago it rained for about the first half hour and scared a lot of people into thinking it was going to stay like that all day, but I made a few calls and it cleared up around 1:30.”