A new music festival will hit East Passyunk Avenue on Sept. 10.
The inaugural East Passyunk Music Festival will offer seven hours of all-ages, family-friendly music on five different stages, taking over East Passyunk Avenue from Broad to Dickinson Street.
“We are excited to debut the first-ever East Passyunk Music Festival featuring more than two dozen top bands, musicians, live performers and DJs, including South Philly favorite Cosmo Baker and MTV’s DJ Diamond Kuts,” said new East Passyunk Business Improvement District Executive Director Rebecca O’Leary. “This new event will be the first cross-cultural music festival on East Passyunk Avenue. We will pair some of the very best and biggest entertainers in the region with our nationally recognized food scene. Come out and enjoy a day of great music, delicious food and cold seasonal sips while strolling and shopping on East Passyunk. Bring the family. This event is for everyone.”
From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., more than two dozen of the best-known local artists and bands will entertain music fans in numerous music genres, spanning doom jazz indie rock, world beats, funk horns, reggae, salsa, hip hop, country, opera and more. Stages will be set up at Juniper Street, Watkins Street, Mifflin Street, Tasker Street and Moore Street.
Early artists announced include South Philly’s own Cosmo Baker, DJ Diamond Kuts, the Avenue’s longtime favorite Brown Sugar, the East Passyunk Opera Project, the beats of Batala Philly, plus Korine, the Paul Green Rock Academy, City Rhythm, Lady HD, Jimmy Jorge and the Latin Express, Shakoor Hakeem, Guachinangos and South Philly’s Elegance String Quartet.
“We are excited to host this inaugural all-day event and move the needle with impactful, multicultural and multigenerational programming to attract more people from across the region to visit, shop and live on East Passyunk,” O’Leary said. “We want to celebrate the best of the Avenue and all we are known for, but we also want to shine the spotlight on lesser-known elements of the Avenue, our amazing retail and small business mix, and our growing music scene.”
The afternoon won’t be just about the music. The independently owned restaurants and shops that have made East Passyunk a local treasure will be in full support of the music festival. Restaurants serving outdoors will include Bing Bing Dim Sum, Ember & Ash, Barcelona, Pistola’s del Sur, Cantina Los Caballitos and LaScala’s Birra, plus many more to be announced as the festival approaches. Pop-up markets and local storefronts will welcome guests to check out the buzz that has made the Avenue so popular.
There will also be family fun, face painting, balloon animals, bounce house, stilt-walkers, goat rescue, arts and crafts, shopping, retail specials, pop-up events and more. The event is free and open to the public, with food and drink pay-as-you-go. For more information, and for a full lineup of musical acts, visit www.visiteastpassyunk.com.
“We hope to see our South Philly familiar faces, but also new faces from Center City, South Jersey, the Main Line and the farther suburbs,” O’Leary said. “This is going to be a memorable event with top-quality talent lighting up our stages. We hope to see you dancing in the street like only we do down here on East Passyunk.”
