Philly Music Fest was founded in 2017 by Jenn and Greg Seltzer. All events are curated and produced by Greg. As home-grown, devoted Philadelphians, our mission is to host a music festival exclusively featuring Philadelphia musicians.
We do it differently than your typical festival. By structuring Philly Music Fest as a non-profit and organizing it ourselves, we eliminate the need to pay producers and promoters. This way, we can pay our musicians well and donate proceeds to local music education for children programs.
With your help, Philly Music Fest reinvests proceeds in the future generation of Philly musicians, while celebrating and highlighting the amazing current generation of Philly musicians. We hope you’ll join the cause and celebrate the music of Philadelphia with us.
We believe that to sustain our vibrant music scene, we must support the next generation of Philadelphia musicians. The bands that will grace our stages in ten years are kids right now. Unfortunately, access to music education is not as easy as it used to be since public schools have cut music education programs.
Philly Music Fest supports the following organizations that teach kids to play, bettering their lives in the process:
Rock To The Future
Live Connections
Settlement Music School
Musicopia
Play On, Philly
Girls Rock Philly
Beyond The Bars
Philadelphia Youth Orchestra
Our aggregate economic impact has increased every year. In 2022, after compensating the musicians and ensuring our independent venues generate a profit from each show, Philly Music Fest donated $100,000 to music education programs. We estimate our aggregate annual support of the Philly music scene to be approximately $400,000 (this number includes the money paid to musicians to play PMF, profits generated by each venue, payments to vendors, proceeds donated to music education programs and microgrants provided to musicians in need of support).
We are incredibly proud of the bands that have played Philly Music Fest. Please support these musicians by purchasing their music and merchandise, and of course, attending their shows.