Ritter Park Live, hosted by the Greater Huntington Parks & Recreation District, will be held at the Ritter Park Amphitheater and is free to the public.

The concert will start at 2:00 p.m. and finish around 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015. Six local artists are scheduled to perform.

GHPRD Executive Director, Kevin Brady and his team aim to bring art and culture to the area through music. Brady thinks hosting the event will give local artists a chance to showcase their talents.

“It’s basically a free concert series that we invite people to come out and enjoy,” Brady said. “It’s a Sunday afternoon, a chance to get out an enjoy the park, the amphitheater and listen to some great music. We serve soft drinks, have some snacks and adult beverages available for anyone 21 years of age or older.”

“We realized a long time ago when we started this program that there is some amazing talent right here in our community,” Brady said. “There are an awful lot of Marshall Students that are very talented, [they] play musical instruments, some of them have little bands and we want to showcase those new, young, upcoming artists.”

Brady thinks exposure is very helpful to amateur artists. “You see it all the time on the Voice and America’s Got Talent these people that normally just sing to them selves or sing in the shower and come out on stage and they just blow people away,” Brady said. “We’ve seen that with a lot of these people that we’ve had at Ritter live.”

The Sunday lineup is as follows; Max Prussner, Emily Barnes, No Pretty Pictures, Creek Don’t Rise, Frisco and Under Surveillance.

The artists are chosen for each event a few weeks beforehand along with food and beverage vendors.

“We do it a month at a time,” Brady said. “We do [concerts] once a month and in between that we will typically have a Party on the Patio during the summer. We try to bring arts and culture to the community through music in a variety of ways. So it’s a couple weeks in preparation, getting our vendors lined up and making sure these people will be here when they say they’re going to be here. They play typically 30-45 minute sets and there’s a couple minutes of stage turn over time.”

The artists are booked by Joe Troubetaris, a local man who runs Porch Unplugged. Porch Unplugged is a musical event hosted in his back yard where locals perform.

“We work with a Gentleman by the name of Joe Troubetaris,” Brady said. “Joe started with a program called Porch Unplugged that he does at his house. Joe is very much in contact with a lot of the young local artist. We met Joe at a National Kids to Parks Day Celebration and he said ‘listen if you ever need any entertainment for Party on the Patio or any of the programs you guys do, let me know, I’ve got a whole list of people that have played the Porch Unplugged Program.’”

Kelsie Lively can be contacted at lively37marshall.edu