September 28, 2023
COURTESY/FISHTOWN MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL
The Fishtown Music & Arts Festival will take over a stretch of North Front Street on Oct. 7 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The photo above shows attendees at last year's festival.
For 11 hours next weekend, a section of Fishtown under the Market-Frankford Line will turn into a block party as the second annual Fishtown Music & Arts Festival brings funk bands, DJs, drinks and an artisan marketplace to the Philly neighborhood.
The event takes place next Saturday, Oct. 7, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on North Front Street from Girard Avenue to West Thompson Street. The market is free to attend, but for everything else, tickets cost $28.52.
For music, live bands will play during the day and DJs will spin records at night. The bands will perform from noon until 5 p.m., starting with the Grateful Dead cover band Funk N' Dead, followed by local funk-fusion trio Muscle Tough and the eight-piece house music band Worldtown Soundsystem. The lineup of DJs, which features acts Jewlssea, Val Fleury, Rob Paine and Josh & Sylo, begins at 5 p.m.
"Our inaugural year was a huge success," said Anthony Talarico, a community advocate and the organizer of the festival. "There is significantly more buzz around the event this year and we anticipate an even larger turnout."
One of the festival's biggest draws is its selection of food and drinks from local favorites like LMNO, Middle Child Clubhouse, Stateside Vodka, Evil Genius Beer Co. and Meyers Brewing Co. In addition, attendees will find themselves in the heart of Fishtown's rich and buzzworthy food scene, with popular restaurants like Wm. Mulherin's Sons and Laser Wolf right next to the festival's boundaries.
The marketplace of more than 70 local makers and artists, curated by Now & Then Marketplace, will run from 12-8 p.m. The festival's organizers have not yet released a full list of those vendors, but Talarico said the marketplace will be double the size of last year's.
