Lineup announced for Porchfest Sebastopol 2025 at Ives Park and SebArts

A one-day music extravaganza on Sept. 13 with seven stages, 40 bands and a rockin' afterparty

After complaints from High Street neighbors forced Porchfest Sebastopol to seek another venue this summer, the event’s producers decided to investigate what it would take to move Porchfest to Ives Park. Sebastopol Center for the Arts Director Serafina Palandech quickly offered their venue as well.

Now it’s official. Sebastopol music impresario Greg “Ceni” Ceniceroz, the creator of Porchfest Sebastopol, sent out a press release this week announcing the second annual Porchfest will be happening on Saturday, Sept. 13, at Ives Park and SebArts. Porchfest Sebastopol 2025 will feature seven stages and 40 bands in a one-day music extravaganza.

The organizers named this year’s event ‘Hardly’ Porchfest in recognition of the fact that there won’t actually be any porches involved in the event. (Ceniceroz said there were plans afoot to decorate the stages as if they were porches.)

Three of the stages will be at SebArts—on the large indoor stage and on both patios on either side of the building. (SebArts is donating the use of their space for this event.) The other four stages will be scattered around Ives Park.

Here’s a rough schedule:

• 12 pm - 6 pm — Free music in the park and on the SebArts patios

• 7 pm - 10 pm — After-hours event inside SebArts. Admission to the afterparty at SebArts is $10.

Here is a list of some of the bands that will be playing at the event. New bands are still being added.

There will be a wine and beer garden at this year’s event. The beer will be from Old Caz. In terms of wine, Porchest Sebastopol is partnering with Taste West County, a marketing collective of several west county wineries, including Dutton Goldfield, Dutton Estate, DRNK, Emeritus, Furthermore, Halleck, Joseph Jewll, Martin Rey, Marimar Estate, Merry Edwards, Pellegrini, Paul Mathew, Purple Pachyderm and Red Car.

Porchfest Sebastopol will get a cut of the alcohol sales, and there will also be some Porchfest Sebastopol merchandise available for purchase. This should help defray the cost of the event, which is more expensive to produce than last year’s event because they’re going through a stricter permitting process.

“The city charged us $500, plus a $1,000 deposit, to use the park,” Ceniceroz said. “We had to get insurance for about $800, and an ABC license because we’re having a beer and wine garden ($100). We also have to get two police officers and pay them overtime at $1,800. Plus five porta potties (one ADA) and two hand-washing stations. I think that was another $1,300 or $1,400.”

Still, he’s glad they were able to pull it together at the last minute with the change of venue. “I’m very happy about that,” he said.

As for the future, Ceniceroz said he’d like to have Porchfest Sebastopol back on neighborhood porches.

“The plan is to, next year, move it to a neighborhood,” Ceniceroz said. “We don’t know which one yet. We’re gonna try to take a survey and ask people who wants it, where they want it and how do we should do it. So we hope that next year we will be back on real porches in real neighborhoods.”

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