Philly Music Fest's annual festival kicks off Monday night

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philly Music Fest is back on Monday night for its eighth annual citywide festival.

The weeklong event is not only a celebration of musicians, but it also supports music education programs for kids all across the area.

It's 21 bands, seven nights, at six venues in six different city neighborhoods.

The theme for the Eighth Annual Philly Music Fest is "Our Genre is Philly."

The nonprofit was founded by a local husband and wife team, Greg and Jenn Seltzer.

"We wanted to find a home for these bands each year to celebrate local music," Jenn said.

Their goal is three-fold and the first is to shine a spotlight on musicians, both emerging and established.

"We're going to highlight and feature local music, some of which play stadiums now and big amphitheaters, and also some who are very young and just breaking out," Greg says. "We marry them up and we highlight them."

The second mission is to support and celebrate independent music venues.

"These venues are all owned by local people who live and grew up in our community, and they're operating them without the kind of deal flow, and concert flow, of big conglomerates," Greg says. "They're super important to keep alive."

Finally, there's the philanthropy.

At the end of the seven-day festival, $100,000 will be donated to local music programs for kids, including Settlement Music School, Beyond the Bars, and Rock to the Future.

"The secret is that we have no payroll, we have no staff," Greg says. "All of the profit is donated to music education, so it's recycled back to kids in the city. A lot of these kids, they have had music education cut in their school, so they have to rely on these programs after school and on weekends. And those programs need funding."

Every ticket purchased achieves that goal.

Philly Music Fest runs through October 27 at six venues across the city.

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