By TOM GERROW
BG Independent News
When BGSU’s Samba Bateria marching band begins their journey down Hankey Avenue at 1:30 p.m., on Saturday, May 30, they will signal the start of BG Porchfest 2026. But for the scores of organizers, volunteers and sponsors behind BG Porchfest, that moment will mark the culmination of a very long planning process to make it all happen.
The BG Porchfest committee began meeting monthly in August 2025, to start the planning process for this year’s festival. There was much to do: unsold merchandise from the 2025 festival had to be inventoried, and new merchandise designed and ordered. Bands had to be selected and contracts signed. Porches and parking lots had to be secured and insurance purchased. Promotional materials, the website, and new signage – all had to be updated. Most important: volunteers had to be recruited and sponsors contacted.
Read more about Porchfest 2026 here.
Bertie Simcox is the volunteer coordinator, and she is responsible for recruiting folks to perform many vital roles during BG Porchfest. This includes crews for set-up and tear-down/cleanup, setting up and staffing the merch tent, and serving as ambassadors, who help keep the streets clear for traffic, answer questions for those attending, and make sure the private property of non-participating residences is respected.
“We are full and have 47 volunteers this year,” Simcox wrote. “This is the most we’ve ever had!”
“Volunteers are absolutely critical,” said Brian Young, who helped organize the first BG Porchfest six years ago.
“We would never be able to do it without the volunteers,” Young said. “It makes people feel comfortable to have people walking around with information, like the ambassadors. We wouldn’t have a merch tent if we didn’t have volunteers.”
While Porchfest is a free event for those attending, there are expenses to make it all happen. Fortunately, there are dozens of area organizations, businesses and individuals who chip in as sponsors of the event.
When Porchfest got started, Young and Bob Midden, professor emeritus at BGSU and band leader of Toraigh, took on all the financial burden. “We didn’t have sponsors the first two years, so we had no money,” Young said. “Whatever bills we had, we paid out of our own pockets. And that’s the way it was.”
But after a couple years, when the event became more established and was gaining popularity, Young started reaching out to potential sponsors.
“I think what the sponsors were seeing is there is a lot of community support for this,” Young said. “And they knew we couldn’t do this alone. They probably knew it wasn’t going to last very long if we had to keep funding it.”
Newlove Realty has been a long-time sponsor of BG Porchfest. For broker Andy Newlove, the grassroots arts scene in Bowling Green is part of what makes the community special.
“We try to support them so that they can thrive,” Newlove said. “It’s a big deal for these festivals and these events to get the support they need, or they won’t be able to do it.”
“It brings people together and just fits with where we like to give back to the community,” Newlove added.
Of course, the bands are why people turn out for BG Porchfest. Local drummer and percussionist Ruben Arreguin will be playing with the CBR Trio, which will be closing out the festival with a set starting at 6:30 p.m. at 208 Eberly Ave. He said the vibe at Porchfest is a big part of the draw.
“It’s the excitement everybody has for their favorite bands,” Arreguin said. “A lot of people come specifically for a particular band, like Joe Baker Band or Tom Gorman.”
Arreguin says he makes every effort to check the band schedule carefully to make sure he can see as many his favorite bands during the festival as he can. As one of the more in-demand percussionists in Bowling Green, he has at times played in many of them himself.
“I play in multiple bands, and I always do my best to accommodate everyone,” he said.
That’s not always easy. “All these porch gigs, the bands have to provide their own sound equipment,” he noted. “I have a Bose sound system I use for CBR. But if I’m playing with another band, it can be difficult to get the system to other stages.”
With the tight time schedules – a new band starts playing every 15 minutes – that often makes playing with another act nigh on impossible. But Arreguin is ready to hit the stage, er, porch this year.
“I’m looking forward to playing on Sean’s porch,” Arreguin said. “It’s all open and you’ve got a good view of all the band members, so everybody should be able to see and hear us really well.”
The view will be a little better in part due to the efforts of festival organizer Sean Brennan, who worked with the city on getting a special events permit, a first for BG Porchfest.
“There won’t be any cars parked in front of a porch that has a band,” Brennan said, with city putting up no parking signage where needed. “It’s just a few houses, but it’ll make it a better line of sight, more convenient for people, and just a better listening experience.”
