Porch party season kicks off this weekend in downtown Kitchener

Waterloo region Porch party season will kick off this Saturday in downtown Kitchener with the Hohner Avenue Porch Party (H.A.P.P.)

For the uninitiated, Laura Peart-McBride, one of the event’s organizers, explained it this way: “A porch party is a community event where musicians play on porches and people come free of charge and listen to the music and spend time with their neighbours.”

H.A.P.P. will see 31 live acts perform 30-minute sets on 16 different porches from 3 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.

“We have four bands playing at once so people look at the bands and they either wander up and down the street during the set so they can look at the different bands, or they can schedule who they want to catch,” Peart-McBride said.

One band will finish a set on a porch before another band will start up a couple of doors down. Bands do not play consecutively on the same porch. Peart-McBride says H.A.P.P. is set up in that manner so spectators wander the block.

“It encourages people to keep moving and to look around and to really seek out where they want to spend their time,” she explained.

At 6:30 p.m. all of the bands will shut down as Andrea Milne, a silk aerialist, takes centre stage for a performance alongside a flutist.

“We always try to highlight one neighbour that does something that is really cool,” Peart-McBride said.

The event will be closed by the headline act: Safe As Houses.

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This will be the sixth edition of the Hohner Avenue Porch Party.

Peart-McBride says they initially had no idea how things were going to proceed. They got the idea from the Grand Porch Party, a Waterloo summer staple, along with other famous porch parties they were aware of. Although outside of a name and the music, they had no idea where they were headed with H.A.P.P.

“We had heard the name porch party and we have such great porches in our neighbourhood,” Peart-McBride said, so it seemed like a natural fit for an artsy community which is home to many musicians because of its proximity to the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.

The first year 16 musicians stepped up to play. This year they had a talent pool of more than 50 bands from across the province apply to play.

“Our first year we had no idea what that day was going to look like,” she explained. “It was trial and error. It has worked out wonderfully for our neighbourhood. A ton of people came out. We had so many musicians come out and support us.”

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The organizing committee has chosen to keep it local, only having bands from the Waterloo region performing.

Hohner Avenue will be closed to vehicle traffic for the porch party on Saturday.

We see that as a benefit because we get a tremendous amount of chalk out. Leave chalk everywhere for people to draw,” Peart-McBride explained. “Neighbours bring out their patio furniture and put it on the road. We have colouring sheets and musical instruments spread throughout the entire street.”

There will also be food trucks, art installations and Mindful Makers will have a something special set up for children.

H.A.P.P is just the first of several porch parties which will occur over the summer across the Waterloo region.

On June 10, the Grand Porch Party will take over the streets of Uptown Waterloo from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.

On July 28, the Schneider Creek Porch Party will be on from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m.

To close out the summer, the Preston Porch Party will take place on August 25 from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m.