Red Bank’s second annual Porchfest townwide music festival is shaping up to be bigger than the first, organizers said last week.
To encourage attendees to bike between the more two dozen “stages,” this year’s event will feature temporary bike lanes.
Sunshine, cool weather, beach chairs, bikes and guitars… Red Bank’s first-ever Porchfest music festival “went off as flawlessly as it could” Sunday, said lone mayoral candidate Billy Portman.
The five-hour festival, which Portman organized with HABcore executive Marta Quinn as a fundraiser for the housing nonprofit, put more than 80 musical acts on 22 porches, lawns and driveways across the borough. Each drew an audience, some in the hundreds.
Traveling around to the various porches, yards and driveways, “I just watched it grow as the hours got later,” Portman told redbankgreen.
The event was nonpolitical, Portman said, though “it is completely aligned with what I hope to do more of as a mayor, and that is bring people together, and focus more on our similarities, and less on our differences.” He also hopes to make Porchfest as an annual occurrence, he said.
redbankgreen stopped in at all 22 venues. Here’s some of what we saw; click photos to enlarge.
An interactive map for the event displays the lineup of acts at each location; click on circled numbers to view. Below, Carlotta Schmidt is among the scheduled artists. (Photo from YouTube. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It was not that long ago that Red Bank was a place of large-scale, outdoor music festivals. One needn’t be ancient to recall the sprawling, weekend-long Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Festival in Marine Park each summer, or the spring-and-fall festivals in the White Street parking lot, both of which went dark this year.
But this Sunday, live, open-air concerts come roaring back to the borough in a new, decentralized model that’s been road-tested elsewhere: Porchfest, a five-hour eargasm of 70 acts spread across town on 21 residential porches, plus 11 more acts at a previously scheduled music fest behind a dentist’s office.
Squeezing summer for every last minute of open-air fun, the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair returns with eight nights of rides, seafood, 50-50 drawings and more starting Friday.
Sunny and cool weather provided ideal conditions for the return of the Red Bank RiverCenter-hosted Guinness Oyster Festival Sunday.
After a missed year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s 11th edition saw fewer local restaurants owing to staffing shortages. But thousands of attendees packed the White Street parking lot, waited patiently in lines for food and drinks, and partied with friends in front of two stages as in the past.
Were you there? Look for yourself and your friends in redbankgreen‘s beaucoup photos below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Likely to be the biggest bash Red Bank has seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guinness Oyster Festival is set to return for a skipped-year 11th edition Sunday.
Here’s some helpful information for those planning to attend, including a lookahead at the forecast.
Rumbling back into Fair Haven Friday night after missing out on 2020: the summer-ending food-and-fun extravaganza known as the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair.
Here’s what you need to know if you’re going.
Two weeks after they were announced, six paid-admission concerts over the next two Saturdays in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park have been cancelled.
The Weeklings, who’ve performed at past food festivals in town, will get a starring slot at a concert in Riverside Gardens Park. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The sun has set on the possibility that downtown Red Bank will host one or maybe even two food festivals this autumn.
Instead, business promotion agency RiverCenter has put six outdoor concerts on the district’s dance card – but you’ll have to pay to attend.
The annual Guinness Oyster Fest in September could be followed just three weeks later by the International Beer, Wine & Food Fest, usually held in April. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With a calendar decimated by the COVID-19 crisis, Red Bank appears to be in for an unusually quiet summer.
But as summer edges into autumn, two of the town’s largest annual food festivals could occur within three weeks of one another, redbankgreen has learned.
Here’s a lookahead at the pandemic’s impacts on the summer calendar.
Sunshine and feels-like temperatures around 80 degrees put thousands of visitors in a dancing, eating and drinking mood at the 10th annual Guinness Oyster Festival in Red Bank Sunday.
This year’s event, held as always in the White Street parking lot, raised funds for three Red Bank-based benefactors: Monmouth Day Care Center, T. Thomas Fortune House, and Red Bank RiverCenter, the event sponsor.
Were you there? Look for yourself and your friends in redbankgreen‘s photos. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
An ideal day of sunshine and early-autumn temperatures drew thousands of foodies and music lovers — including fans of folk singer Melanie, at right — to downtown Red Bank for the ninth annual Guinness Oyster Festival Sunday.
An alumnus of both Red Bank Regional and Woodstock, Melanie played a short set and signed autographs.
As usual, the roving camera of redbankgreen was there to document the merriment. Check out our photos below to see if you or anyone you caught our eye. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
With temperatures hovering in the mid-80s, it was “ten degrees too hot” to draw the usual elbow-to-elbow crowd to the eighth annual Guinness Oyster Festival in Red Bank Sunday, one vendor told redbankgreen.
“The weather is not our friend today,” said Jim Scavone, executive director of event sponsor Red Bank RiverCenter.
Still, the turnout was strong, he said, and “people here having fun, and they’re drinking lots of beer.”
Some pix from the event follow… (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Pilgrim Baptist Church of Red Bank will host its sixth annual Community Unity & Bike Blessing Festival Saturday, a free and open-to-all event that features food, live entertainment, community safety presentations and other attractions.
The Greater Red Bank Green has its share of long-running rites of spring, and gatekeeper events to summer’s threshold, but none sweeter than the annual Strawberry Festival, the 2017 edition of which returns right on schedule to the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury for a morning and afternoon of family-friendly activities, foodstuffs and fundraiser shopping this Saturday.
After two postponements over the past month, Fair Haven’s inaugural Trucktoberfest finally livened up Fair Haven Fields Saturday, bringing a Halloween egg hunt, horse-driven hayrides, live music and food by the truckload. Check out redbankgreen‘s photos below to see who you know. (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
Strollo’s Lighthouse is among the seven food trucks slated to anchor Fair Haven’s Trucktoberfest Saturday, an event that was rescheduled over the threat of rain earlier this month.
Featuring live bands, games and more at Fair Haven Fields on Ridge Road, the event runs from 3 to 9 p.m. For ticket and other info, visit the event’s Facebook page. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Johnny’s Pork Roll is among the food trucks slated to anchor Fair Haven’s Trucktoberfest Saturday.(Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[UPDATE, September 29: Because of rain in forecast for Saturday, this event has been rescheduled for Saturday, October 22, and starting and ending an hour earlier than originally planned.]
OK, so the name turns out not to be as original as organizers thought, given than there was a Trucktoberfest at Monmouth Park less than two weeks ago.
Still, when the Fair Haven version of Trucktoberfest rolls into Fair Haven Fields this Saturday, it will mark the borough’s debut food festival, one with the hipster cred of chow served through a stainless-steel trimmed window.
Blue skies and early-fall temperatures drew thousands of hungry music lovers to downtown Red Bank for the seventh annual Guinness Oyster Festival Sunday. And once again, redbankgreen prowled the midway to document the merriment.
Check out the dozens of photos below to see if you or someone you know was caught slurping, sipping or dancing like nobody’ looking. (Photos by Trish Russoniello and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A team of painters, including 13 students from the visual arts program at Red Bank Regional, worked on the mural throughout the day Saturday and into early Sunday. (Photos by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Racing to finish before an expected rain, a team of artists and volunteers painted a two-story mural in downtown Red Bank over the weekend.
Overlooking the parking lot for Buona Sera restaurant at Monmouth Street and Maple Avenue, the mural promotes a film festival scheduled to light up movie screens in town next month.
A scan from a flyer given out at Wednesday’s council meeting shows a rendering of the proposed mural, at left, and the building it would go on. At bottom right is a 150-foot-tall mural the artist, Misha Tyutyunik, helped create in SoHo. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A prominent black wall in downtown Red Bank may soon be covered with a two-story-high, somewhat psychedelic mural.
The borough council greenlighted the makeover Wednesday night after an organizer of a film festival scheduled to hit town this summer offered it as what he called a “gift” to the town.
The big screen at the Count Basie Theatre, seen here during a live broadcast of the 2014 World Cup, will serve as the home screen for a film festival scheduled to run in July. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Kept on a restricted diet for the past eight years, Red Bank-area fans of independent movies will finally get to binge again this summer.
An outfit called Indie Street — in conjunction with Red Bank RiverCenter, three major entertainment venues and even the borough middle school — is planning screenings of as many as 30 films over five days in July.
Bouncing back for 2015, the annual Middletown Day celebration brings colorful sights, sounds and savor to the grounds of the township’s Parks and Rec headquarters this Saturday.
The annual Middletown Day celebration returns to the headquarters of the township’s Department of Parks and Recreation (the Croydon Hall facility on Leonardville Road in Leonardo) for a rain-or-shine afternoon of all-ages activity that commences this Saturday at 11 a.m.
It’s an eclectic event that promises everything from bounce-houses to business showcases; live rock music to rock-climbing walls; touch-a-firetruck ops to petting zoo — plus food and craft vendors, Granny’s Tag Sale, kids’ activities, all-ages hayrides and all-for-fun sporting contests and tournaments.
Thousands of strolling-and-eating springtime revelers flooded the White Street parking lot for the annual Red Bank International Flavour Festival on a cool, partly sunny afternoon Sunday.
As usual, redbankgreen was there to capture dozens of sweet and savory moments. Are you in one of our photos? Check out the full array below. (Photos by Susan Ericson, Trish Russoniello and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Last year’s International Flavor Festival in Red Bank’s White Street parking lot served a variety of choice tidbits. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
With sunshine and temperatures in the 60’s in the forecast, the Red Bank International Flavour Festival should pack the White Street parking lot once again this Sunday.
The first food festival of the year in a restaurant-crazy town is like opening day for revelers and foodies alike. Seventeen or so of the borough’s finest eateries will be on hand to dispense culinary treats – savory, sweet, and exotic, including: