photo credit: Courtesy of Sebastpolporchfest.org
A screenshot of a 2024 YouTube video posted on the Sebastopol Porchfest website,
showing the band Hard Medicine Corporation.

You may have heard of annual happenings called Porchfest. Those are organized events when homeowners agree to host local musicians to perform on their front porches. Attendees walk neighborhood blocks to enjoy the various venues and musicians for free, building community. 

First organized in 2007 in upstate New York, the idea has caught on across the nation—and the Bay Area. 

Last year, a Porchfest event was brought to Sebastopol. While many are happy to see it return again in 2025, not every neighbor is on board.

Greg Ceniceroz, who goes by “Ceni,” had the idea to start Porchfest Sebastopol after seeing the success of past Porchfests in other Northern California towns. 

“ San Rafael has one“ Ceniceroz said. “Napa used to have one, San Francisco. And I thought ‘Hey, Sebastopol is kind of a perfect place.’”

Ceniceroz said he asked Sebastopol Chief of Police Ron Nelson for permission to host Porchfest in September 2024, and Nelson approved. 

The city provided barricades, and Ceniceroz curated a list of 30 bands to perform. The event took place in the High Street residential neighborhood. 

After a successful run in 2024, plans to bring it back this year were quickly in the works. 

“ We had probably about 1500 people show up,” Ceniceroz said. “It was just this amazing turnout, all positive.” 

Ceniceroz said he asked for community input on how to improve Porchfest for 2025. A few residents of High Street came forward to the city and Chief Nelson to express concerns about the safety and permitting of the event. 

Ian Hoff, a resident of High Street, was one of them. KRCB News reached out to Hoff, but he declined an interview.

However, in Hoff’s letter to Nelson, he said he saw people urinating in his neighbors driveway, drinking and smoking cannabis in the street, and sitting on neighbors’ cars. 

Hoff also said he wasn’t able to leave or arrive by car during the event. 

“We felt trapped last year by the crowds,” he wrote in the letter to the city. 

Ceniceroz says Porchfest Sebastopol wants to work with Hoff and other neighbors to find  solutions to any grievances.

However, he said proceeding with holding this year’s event in the High Street neighborhood proved to be too expensive for the organization, having to pay for fees for a temporary event permit, a traffic control plan, and police overtime presence. 

“ We had to fork out some more money that we didn't have for a nonprofit,” Ceniceroz said.  “ Long story short, we pulled the permit because we just couldn't afford it.”

As a backup plan, Ceniceroz suggested holding this year’s event at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Ives Park. 

“ We're gonna call it Hardly PorchFest because we're gonna build porches in the park and design every stage to look like a porch as we reassess how we're going to move this around Sebastopol in the years coming,” he said.

Ceniceroz said he’s hoping that Porchfest Sebastopol will be able to return to real house porches in 2026. 

“ I'm learning and our board is learning about what proper outreach looks like in the future,” he said.

(Hardly) Porchfest Sebastopol will be held in Ive’s Park on September 13.