Bucktown Musicfest returns for fifth year; fundraiser to honor Sonny Crotti

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The Bucktown Musicfest will return to Dunmore Corners on Sunday for its fifth year of free summer concerts.

The donation-driven concert series will bring eight weeks of musical performances to Dunmore Corners starting Sunday at 5 p.m., with concerts from local bands continuing June 22, June 29, July 6, July 20, Aug. 3, Aug. 17 and Sept. 7. An opening-night lemonade fundraiser led by a borough youth will also raise money in honor of the late Sonny Crotti.

“I can’t believe it’s five years already that we’ve been doing this,” said co-founder Brian McGurl, a Dunmore resident and musician. “The best thing about it is that we have so much support in the community, and we have all this music that comes right to Dunmore Corners and right to the community.”

Dunmore Councilman Tom Hallinan first had the idea for a music festival while driving on Drinker Street in 2021 and noticing how empty it was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, he met up with McGurl, who was Dunmore High School’s drama director for 15 years, and the two discussed a series of concerts.

Although they “didn’t have a nickel in our pocket and didn’t know how to raise money,” Hallinan said they went ahead with it and held their inaugural music festival that summer.

“We thought maybe we’d get a year or two out of it,” Hallinan said, joking about his pessimism. “I never thought we’d be where we’re at, and I’m thinking it’s going to get bigger and better.”

Hallinan lauded the support the music festival receives from the community and businesses. It costs about $20,000 to hold the entire concert series, and 2025 marked their best year of fundraising, he said, attributing the increase to the festival’s new chief financial officer, Carmella Mataloni.

This year, Mataloni introduced sponsorship packages to spur more donations and to add variety. For example, with a donation of $1,000 or more, donors appear on the major sponsors flyer, T-shirts and a large TV showing names and logos of supporters.

“This whole event wouldn’t be possible without those people, so in order to give back to them and their generous contributions, we make sure that those crowds go and give money to those places,” Mataloni said.

Every donation is truly appreciated, Hallinan said.

“That person that gives us $25 is just as important as the person that gives us $1,000,” he said.

The event has a positive impact on borough businesses, Hallinan said, pointing to the support the festival receives from those businesses. When organizers bring in food trucks, they look for foods that won’t compete with Dunmore restaurants, he said.

“If somebody comes in with a taco truck, we don’t have a problem with that because nobody is selling tacos in Dunmore,” he said. “But we’re certainly not going to bring in a pizza truck or a hamburger truck or anything like that.”

Organizers are also now bringing in vendors, giving residents a chance to set up shop in Dunmore Corners, Hallinan said.

As a new addition this year, the Bucktown Musicfest will have a family night Aug. 17 with a DJ, face painting, activities and possibly some characters and princesses in costume, Mataloni said.

“We have a lot of very generous people in this area with their time, so we thought, ‘Why not make a night for the kids?’ ” she said.

The majority of the bands performing throughout the music festival have ties to Dunmore, said McGurl, who will be performing on two nights with his bands East Coast Trio and Q Ball.

“Dunmore has always been a hotbed of music,” McGurl said. “It’s a good thing to have a place for us to play in town.”

As a Dunmore native, McGurl compared the music festival to a family reunion.

“You see everybody, all these families … from 9 to 90 (years old),” he said. “They’re all there at the corners, and everybody is having a good time.”

The Bucktown Musicfest also serves as a venue for fundraising, including raising money for St. Joseph’s Center, Hallinan said.

“St. Joe’s is a big part of our community, and we want to do anything we can to help the children of St. Joseph’s,” he said. “The weekend before their big festival, we have a concert and let them do whatever they want to raise money for the children.”

On Sunday, 11-year-old Brody McCarthy and his friends will be running a lemonade stand with basket raffles in honor of Sonny Crotti, a 16-year-old from Dunmore who died in February 2024 after battling an aggressive form of brain cancer. Crotti played football for the Bucks. Inspired by the #BeGreatForSonny movement, Brody’s lemonade stand raised $2,007 last year, said his mom, Kim McCarthy. Cups of lemonade are $1; reusable cups with “Once a Buck Always a Buck” and #SC3 — representing Crotti’s initials and jersey number — are $2 each. DePietro’s Pharmacy donated the cups last year, and they still have remaining cups this year, Kim McCarthy said.

All proceeds last year went to the Friends of the Bucks to support the football team, but this year, they will be divided between the Friends of the Bucks and the Sonny Crotti Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Brody hopes to exceed last year’s total and raise $3,000. Although he was nervous at first last year, once he got there and started selling lemonade, the nerves went away, the fifth grader said.

“I just really want to help people that need help with their scholarship to get into college,” Brody said. “And for the Friends of the Bucks, they really use the money and help the football team.”