The porches of downtown Napa will be music-free this weekend — but organizers of Napa Porchfest may recast this year’s summertime music crawl as a downtown concert in the early fall.
In their effort to bring Porchfest back to live audiences for the first time since before the coronavirus pandemic, directors are attempting to recast this year’s festival of local and regional musicians as a free showcase for up to a dozen acts at the Oxbow Commons park.
The event, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 26, would take place on the temporary set that will host this year’s Oxbow RiverStage concert series, which begins next month and will run into October.
Porchfest’s music director Micah Malan on Monday confirmed the proposal for the Porchfest concert, as did managing director Ken Tesler of Blue Note Napa, which produces the RiverStage concerts.
“We’re just so ecstatic at the thought of being able to bring free live music to Napa at that magnitude,” said Tesler. “Everyone is looking for a breath of fresh air, and that’s one of them.”
