At 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, Hillcrest Family Music is scheduled to open the day on a porch on Ash Street. Adam Faucett closes it on a porch on Ridgeway Drive at 8:30 p.m. In between, 15 more acts play from front porches and yards on eight residential streets. None of the stages is on Kavanaugh Boulevard.
That is new for this neighborhood. Hillcrest Porchfest is in its first year, and the Little Rock Letter calls it "Arkansas' first-ever Porchfest." It also moves Hillcrest's event map off the commercial strip and onto the blocks behind it.
Every other date on the calendar is a Kavanaugh date
Take a look at the Hillcrest Merchants Association calendar. Nearly every recurring Hillcrest event happens on the boulevard. The July Ice Cream Social fills the 2800 block of Kavanaugh. HarvestFest runs "throughout the business district." The Christmas tree lighting happens on the Promenade. The Hillcrest Residents Association lists First Thursday on Kavanaugh Blvd as well.
The model makes sense for a merchants' calendar. The events bring people to the shops and restaurants, and the HMA's own wording for its December event is "Live, Shop, Dine in HC!"
Porchfest starts from a different place. Organizer Leah Belew told Little Rock Soirée that the event is "entirely volunteer-powered," and added, "No one pays to attend, and no one is paid to host, perform or organize. It's an experiment in that regard." She got the idea after attending the Highland Park Porchfest in Chattanooga, according to the same Soirée story. The format itself goes back to Ithaca, New York, in 2007.
That changes where the venue is. With no budget, the stages are whatever porches neighbors offer, so the map follows the hosts.
Ridgeway Drive carries the day
The official schedule lists 17 sets. Six of them are on Ridgeway Drive, at three different porches, and those six include the closing set of the night. Midland Street has three. Ash Street and Crystal Court have two each. Beechwood, North Valentine, Colonial Court and Fairfax each host one.
| Time | Artist | Street |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00–11:00 | Hillcrest Family Music | Ash St |
| 11:00–11:35 | Corbin Huffstutter | Beechwood St |
| 11:20–11:55 | Bethany Raybourn | Ash St |
| 12:00–12:35 | Moriah Mitchell | Ridgeway Dr |
| 12:30–1:15 | Big Red Flag | Ridgeway Dr |
| 1:00–1:35 | Mark Currey | N Valentine St |
| 1:30–2:05 | Don Doc & The Devine | Midland St |
| 1:50–2:25 | Larrissa | Crystal Ct |
| 2:20–2:55 | Silas Carpenter | Ridgeway Dr |
| 2:40–3:25 | JoClair | Colonial Ct |
| 3:10–3:55 | PropHunter | Midland St |
| 3:30–4:15 | Ike Peters | Ridgeway Dr |
| 4:00–4:45 | Trevor Bates | Ridgeway Dr |
| 4:45–5:30 | Dandelioness | Crystal Ct |
| 5:30–6:30 | Patty & The Cakes | Fairfax Ave |
| 6:30–7:30 | Chris DeClerk & Nick Devlin | Midland St |
| 7:30–8:30 | Adam Faucett | Ridgeway Dr |
The festival site publishes the house numbers and a map, so check both before you head out. The hours differ between listings. The Hillcrest Residents Association event listing shows 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the location "TBD," while the festival's own schedule runs 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Plan around the festival's schedule, since it names the porches.
The sets overlap on purpose. Bethany Raybourn starts at 11:20 while Corbin Huffstutter is still playing on Beechwood. Larrissa starts on Crystal Court 20 minutes into Don Doc & The Devine's set on Midland. The day is built for walking a few blocks between porches, and the FAQ puts it this way: "Stay as long as you want, leave whenever you want, come back whenever you want."
Ridgeway is the easiest place to stay put. If you settle there around noon, you can hear Moriah Mitchell, Big Red Flag, Silas Carpenter, Ike Peters and Trevor Bates over about five hours, with short walks between three porches.
No stage, no closed streets, no tickets
A residential event with no budget doesn't get the usual festival setup, and the FAQ says so plainly. "Streets will not be closed, and all normal rules of law apply." It asks attendees to "gather in lawns and on sidewalks, avoid crowding the street as we share this public space, and yield to vehicles leaving/entering their homes."
Because there are no closures, cars will be using these streets all day, including neighbors who don't plan to attend. The organizers' FAQ covers the rest:
- Bring your own seat. The site's first instruction is "Bring a chair or blanket, pack your cooler."
- Restrooms are portable toilets. Their locations will be marked on the map, and the FAQ asks attendees not to request entry to anyone's home.
- Bring cash or a payment app for tips. The FAQ asks people to "tip the musicians who are generously gifting us their time and talents!"
- Clean up after yourself and your dog. Trash and pet waste are both on the list.
Hosts can set up their porches however they like. Soirée's preview mentioned that you "might find a fire pit glowing, coffee brewing or hot chocolate in hand." No charity or fundraising beneficiary appears in the festival's materials. The only money that changes hands is whatever you put in the musicians' tip jars.
Kavanaugh's job on Saturday is lunch and a dry roof
With the stages on side streets, the boulevard has two supporting jobs. The first is food. As of the festival's FAQ, organizers were still "in process of seeing if food Trucks are an option this year." Otherwise, the FAQ suggests you "pack snacks or hop over between sets to one of the Hillcrest restaurants nearby!" Several of the host porches sit on Ridgeway and Midland, and either street makes a short walk to a sit-down lunch on Kavanaugh during a gap in the schedule.
The second job is weather. If it rains, the FAQ says the event moves indoors to Hillcrest Commons at 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. and "the schedule would remain the same." So a wet Saturday puts all 17 sets in one building on the boulevard. Check the forecast that morning before you carry a folding chair to Crystal Court.
Then the calendar moves back to the Promenade
Kavanaugh gets its usual role back on both sides of Porchfest. First Thursday falls on Thursday, Nov. 5, two days before Porchfest, from 6 to 9 p.m. along Kavanaugh. The Hillcrest Residents Association lists it as a night to "enjoy the fine food, beverages, do some shopping." That gives you two neighborhood evenings out in the same three days, one on the boulevard and one behind it.
The next fixed date is the Hillcrest Christmas Tree Lighting on the Promenade, Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 6:15 p.m. It brings cookies, hot drinks, music and Santa, the tree lights at 6 p.m., and the HMA and HRA presidents announce the season's holiday events. The HMA's Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service and its December "Holidays in Hillcrest" evening, 5 to 7:30 p.m. with Santa, music and treats, are both still marked "TBA" on its calendar.
The Promenade is also where Hillcrest's sidewalks meet Allsopp Park. The city built a concrete trail in 2020 that starts at the west end of the Allsopp Promenade and joins the park's existing trail at Cedar Hill Drive. KARK reported that the park reopened July 21 after a four-month closure, much longer than the six weeks originally planned. It now has two new playgrounds, a tennis court, a basketball court and new nature spaces. Parks Director Lealand Couch told KARK the city had also finished "new mountain bike soft-surface trails in North Offset" with an RTP grant and resurfaced some of the asphalt trails, "and there will be more resurfacing of those." If you've heard the Porchfest sets you came for by midafternoon, the renovated park is a short walk from Kavanaugh.
If you're looking at houses on Ridgeway, Midland or any street on that Porchfest map, Will Smith Realty knows those blocks well and is happy to walk you through what's for sale on them. Or if you're curious what your own porch-fronted home might be worth, let's talk.
