Just figured I’d share with the night owls since y’all are up and I’m finishing this painting. Gonna make this into a poster for my band 🤟🏼
I was originally going to fill the deer in but I kind of like the ghost deer now…
Hi folks- Musician here whose set got mostly rained out yesterday during Porchfest. We were grateful to folks who stuck around with umbrellas and ponchos during the 5:30 PM deluge, but it was not ideal or really fair to keep Porchfest happening on a day where rain was going to happen literally all day and today would have been just absolute perfect weather.
The fact is that our experience is one many people lived through yesterday (or worse). Many people cancelled their sets, many people had to deal with a lot of extra stress or emotional turmoil, many people put their musical gear at risk in the rain. There are a lot of amateur musicians participating in this event and it really is risky when it rains to a certain level or puddles form with electrical gear and not everyone understands the risks. I really don't want to see one of my musician peers in the community get hurt in the future from electrocution or destroy their $1000 PA system unnecessarily. If the city says it cares about safety enough to shut down certain streets, they should also care about the safety of the musicians playing the event and forcing them to play in the rain with risks for electrocution with ungrounded gear or to have someone step in a puddle with wires is just frankly unsafe.
How can we petition the city/arts council to reinstate the rain date for next year for Porchfest? We really need it.
If it comes down to costs for portapotties can we just have less portapotties or suck up the cost for two days of portapotties? I would certainly put my tax dollars towards that and I know many of the 2000+ musicians who participated would as well, as well as the thousands of attendees who would prefer to have a pure day where we can actually relax and vibe and enjoy one of the best events Somerville has to offer. I know people still had fun yesterday and found ways to make it work, but we shouldn't even have had to be in this position.
If anyone wants to jump on an initiative for a group email or phone campaign to ask the city to reinstate the rain date please dm me or express so in the comments below. Also open to ideas.