The Story

Now in its fourth season, Weather Permitting is a promotional outdoor weekly concert series held at the Shadyside Nursery. Each Sunday, the nursery transforms into a vibrant event space that features bands, beer from local breweries, food trucks and a marketplace. We have have squirt gun battles, games, and hula-hoop fun for kids of all ages – last year we even let the kids do some karaoke. More than just an event, this collaboration of local folks was built with the intention of supporting and promoting small businesses.

OUR REACH… Last year, our events averaged 150-200 people, and our social media outreach efforts were seen weekly by at least 3,000 local Pittsburgh folks. We maintained a solid social media campaign throughout the summer and we were featured in the Pittsburgh City Paper. The Weather Permitting team also collaborated on some other events, including Pittsburgh Abides (a Lebowski fest), ensuring that the Weather Permitting name was always plastered on posters all over town. We are currently looking for local green businesses that want to advertise with us on flyers, social media, and on our website. While the event itself is the cornerstone of Weather Permitting, the intent is to provide small, local businesses with the opportunity to reach our network of attendees and supporters. If interested, please contact us at wepermitpgh@gmail.com for more information.

The Venue

Since April 2011, brothers Bill Brittain and Mike Georges have worked hard to provide the Shadyside community with quality plants, gardening supplies and landscaping services. The nursery has evolved into a multi-use green space that houses two additional small, local businesses: Shadyside Worms and BeeBoy hives & honey. Proud to play hosts to this weekly event, Bill and Mike are responsible for transforming the nursery space into an outdoor event space (and then back again) each week. On Sundays, you can find them instigating squirt gun battles and showing off their hula-hooping skills.

PETE SPYNDA 

(Pandemic Pete)

PROMOTER / FOUNDER

Since 2005, Pandemic has been exposing the citizens of Pittsburgh to the best in global sounds, including gypsy brass, cumbia, chalga, bollywood, dancehall, bhangra, Arabic hip hop, afrobeats, African hip hop and Brazilian bass. Think a hybrid of traditional folk music and contemporary dance music from around the world. Since 2013 Pete has been organizing community events, creating alternative festivals and community events around the city including Pgh Abides, Pittonkatonk, Bayardstown Social Club and of course Weather Permitting. As Pandemic Pete his DJ sets are borderless, combining cutting edge dance music from remote regions of the world with traditional folk music reenergizing cultural identities. Pandemic has performed at just about every type of venue and party imaginable, from the Three Rivers Arts Festival and the Carnegie International, to warehouses and bowling alleys. Regardless if you know him as Pandemic, or just as Pete, he is responsible for booking bands, food trucks, social media and event promotion. On Sundays, he functions as the event’s manager/ director. You can find him handling the sound, putting out proverbial fires and milling through the crowd with his daughter on his shoulders.

STEPHANIE BREA

ORGANIZER

Writer, copy-editrix, and surrogate mother to the Weather Permitting group, Stephanie is also responsible for logistics and organization. She makes sure that the bathrooms are stocked with toilet paper, lost children find their parents, and that the first aid kit has band-aids. She has been known to bring birthday cake and is always on board for end-of-the-night sparklers.On Sundays, she will greet you at the entrance, collect your admission and make sure you get IDed and wristbanded. She’s pretty good at answering questions, and she is an experienced hula-hoop competition emcee

THE SHADYSIDE NURSERY

The Shadyside Nursery is a family owned and operated business located at the corner of Maryland and Ellsworth Ave in the Shadyside Neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  They hours are 11am-7pm daily.