Minneapolis boy invites his neighbourhood to free piano concert, hundreds show up

If you promote it, they will come.

A young boy in Minneapolis invited his neighourhood to a free front-porch piano concert.

Dylan Spoering, 8, put up a homemade sign in his front yard reading: "Free piano concert by Dylan Spoering."

Thomas Rehbein, a local musician, saw the sign and thought he'd help out Dylan. Rehbein created a Facebook event page.

"I have no idea who Dylan Spoering is, but he made this sign and put it out in his front yard, which I saw while biking home," he wrote online.

"Wouldn't it be cool if a bunch of people showed up for his free concert?"

"I think it's really important to encourage kids to think big and dream big instead of just telling them, 'Oh, your ideas are silly,'" Rehbein told Fox 9.

On Saturday, despite the rain, about 400 people — there wasn't an official tally — flocked to Dylan's front yard to see him perform.

Some carried signs: "Dylan Rocks" and "Sign my poster, Dylan!"

"I just wanted to play for people, I just wanted to play for free and now I'm famous," Dylan said.

After playing three short songs from his piano book, Dylan called for an intermission and cookie break. He handed out Oreos to his new fans before resuming his concert.

"I thought 15 or 20 people would come," Rehbein admitted at the event. "This is pretty wild."

"It makes you feel really good that the world is really cool and people are really sweet, makes me feel good about my community that they would do something like this to make a little kid feel like a rock star for a half an hour," Rehbein added.

Nearly 10,000 people watched the event live on Ustream.

After an encore, Dylan invited everyone to an ice cream social in the park.

"Good job, Minneapolis!" Rehbein wrote on Facebook on Sunday. "The truth is, I didn't plan anything. This charming little kid put up signs and spent all of his free time outside promoting it. You, as a community, decided what you value and got behind it. That's awesome.

"The hype will fade away in a couple days as things on social media are wont to do. However, anyone who broke the story, re-shared the event, showed up, or watched the feed are the ones who made it happen and because of this, I hope other communities and other kids will see it and things like this will happen in other places."

He added, "Bottom line: a young kid wanted to play his music for free, and you as a city thought that was cool and said, 'Okay buddy, we want to hear it.' Thanks for sending a good message to him and the world. Cheers."