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PorchFest STL transforms stoops into stages

Local musicians perform at PorchFest STL in 2017. The event grew out of a partnership between Washington University students and the Skinker DeBaliviere Community Council.
Thomas Whitener

Residents in the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis are set to welcome local musicians and bands Sunday afternoon for a unique music festival.

Inspired by a similar event in Ithaca, New York, PorchFest STL aims to bring the community together and encourage neighbors to connect with one another.

“In Skinker DeBaliviere, there’s a pretty broad range of diversity from a generational, racial and socioeconomic perspective,” said event organizer Dylan Bassett. “This is an opportunity to build community across a diversity of groups of St. Louisians who wouldn’t necessarily have a connection otherwise or know each other.”

The event, which began in 2017, grew out of a partnership between Washington University students and the Skinker DeBaliviere Community Council.

“Wash U is sort of in its own bubble socially,” Bassett said. “It was a big motivating factor to try to break out of that bubble and make a real investment in the place we’re living and get to know the people that live there.”

The free music festival runs from 1 to 5 p.m. and will feature 26 bands across a variety of genres, including rock, soul, electronica and folk.

Residents throughout the neighborhood have volunteered to host the bands. Each band will play a 30-minute set on one of 13 porches.

Attendees are encouraged to meet at the focal point stage at 6008 Kingsbury Ave.

A full schedule of this year’s line-up is available here.

Follow Shahla on Twitter: @shahlafarzan

Shahla Farzan was a reporter at St. Louis Public Radio. Before becoming a journalist, Shahla spent six years studying native bees, eventually earning her PhD in ecology from the University of California-Davis. Her work for St. Louis Public Radio on drug overdoses in Missouri prisons won a 2020 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.