HONK! Festival 2025: 20th Annual, with extra programming in the works for this year -- runs Oct. 9-12, 2025

[Mary C. Curtin]

20TH ANNUAL
HONK!
FESTIVAL OF
ACTIVIST
STREET BANDS

THIS YEAR'S
ON-SITE
BANDS TOTAL 32
(at last count)

[HONK! Festival, 2024,
video still; courtesy of
Emperor Norton’s
Stationary Marching Band]

October 9 thru 12, 2025
(rain or shine)

a wide variety of musical /
activist events planned at
Tufts University,
in Medford
(HONK! U Conference
on Thursday);
Davis Square,
in Somerville
(street music, workshops,
lantern parades
on Friday & Saturday);
and
Harvard Square,
in Cambridge
(with a vast Parade
out of Davis Sq.
to then participate
in Oktoberfest,
on Sunday)

FREE AND
OPEN TO ALL

“At full power,
these bands create
an irresistible
spectacle of creative
movement and sonic
self-expression
directed at making
the world a
better place.
This is the
movement
we call HONK!”
(honkfest.org/about/)

The very first ever anywhere HONK! Festival took place in Davis Square, Somerville. Held during Indigenous Peoples’ Day weekend, October 6-8, 2006, twelve unplugged mobile street bands -- 3 local, 8 from across the U.S., and 1 travelling from Vancouver -- all descended upon the Square. With boisterous fanfare, impossible to ignore, they gathered to celebrate their solidarity, with the strong belief that joyful music in public space can meet the challenging moments of our time.

The founders of HONK! were certainly right about that. Since 2006, HONK!s large and small have popped up throughout the world. Every October, the founding band of the HONK! phenomenon, the Good Trouble Brass Band (fka Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band), continues to share its home town with kindred spirit street bands from all over the U.S. -- and usually from other countries as well. Even a HONK! United virtual front during COVID 2020 proved to be a powerful approach to keep building this ever-growing non-stop HONK! solidarity movement.

That 2020 experience will also come in handy in 2025, as HONK! continues with its mission to cast wide a net as possible. This year, our streets will come alive with 32 (at last count) in-person bands on-site -- 11 based in Massachusetts and the rest coming in from all across the U.S. -- Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Vermont, Pittsburgh... and more!

Although we will not invite international bands to our streets this year, the valuable lessons learned in 2020 will allow HONK! organizers to bring them to Davis Square virtually -- bands from Brazil, Chile, Italy, England, Germany and Canada will join this year's HONK! via live stream to Davis Square on Saturday. At HONK! the portal to the world is always open.

The details for this year’s HONK! are still being finely tuned, but will include many of the elements that participants and attendees have come to expect for the full HONK! experience. Outdoor street level band concerts will be held throughout Somerville’s Davis Square and the nearby neighborhoods on HONK! Friday and Saturday. And the vast “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet" Parade will again travel from Davis Square to Harvard Square in Cambridge, on HONK! Sunday, arriving to participate in the 46th annual Oktoberfest.

But expect some new programming too. On HONK! Thursday, Tufts University’s Department of Music will co-host a free all-day HONK! U – A Conference Celebrating 20 Years of Street Music Activism. HONK! U, which is open to all, will include presentations, panel discussions, conversations, and workshops addressing the development and expansion of HONK! as a world-wide grassroots phenomenon. Registration in advance is highly recommended: honkfest.org/2025-festival/conference-2025/. There will also be grass roots street actions taking place in different areas of Boston (specifics yet to be determined).

Below follows the current list of HONK! on-site participants for 2025, with further details on each available at honkfest.org/2025-festival/bands-2025/:
-- All For One Brass Band (New Orleans, LA);
-- aNova Brazil (Boston, MA);
-- Band Together (pickup band) (Somerville, MA);
-- Black Sheep Ensemble (Atlanta, GA);
-- The Brass Balagan (Burlington, VT);
-- Brasscals (Santa Barbara, CA);
-- Brass Liberation Orchestra (San Francisco, CA);
-- Brass Solidarity (Minneapolis, MN);
-- The Bread and Puppet Circus Band (Glover, VT);
-- Clamor and Lace Noise Brigade (Chicago, IL);
-- DC Activist Street Band (Washington, DC);
-- Dirty Water Brass Band (Boston, MA);
-- Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band (Somerville, MA);
-- Expandable Brass Band (Northampton, MA);
-- Extraordinary Rendition Band (Providence, RI);
-- Fly By Brass Band (Somerville, MA);
-- Forward! Marching Band (Madison, WI);
-- Good Trouble Brass Band (Somerville, MA);
-- Greenbelt Honk! Situation (Greenbelt, MD);
-- Hartford Hot Several (Hartford, CT);
-- HONK Family Band (New York, NY);
-- Ideal Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band (Portland, ME);
-- Kandjanwou Rara (Boston, MA);
-- Leftist Marching Band (Portsmouth, NH);
-- L Train Brass Band (Brooklyn, NY);
-- May Day Marching Band (Pittsburgh, PA);
-- The Party Band (Lowell, MA);
-- Rara Bel Poze (Boston, MA);
-- Rude Mechanical Orchestra (New York, NY);
-- School of HONK (Somerville, MA);
-- Undertow Brass Band (Providence, RI);
-- Yes Ma’am Brass Band (Austin, TX)

Basic information:
HONK! Festival
20th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands.
October 9-12, 2025
Held throughout Somerville, Medford, Cambridge, and Boston neighborhoods.
Mostly outdoors, rain or shine.
Free and open to all; if interested in volunteering, contact volu...@honkfest.org.
For HONK! updates:
honkfest.org, twitter.com/honkfest, facebook.com/honkfestival, instagram.com/honkfest/.
Contact info: honkfest.org/contact/, in...@honkfest.org, 781-285-8639.

The Somerville-based HONK! Committee would like to give special thanks to the City of Somerville, Somerville Arts Council, Harvard Square Business Association, and the Davis Square and Harvard Square businesses for their continued support. Opportunities to volunteer and contribute to this year’s HONK! can be found at: honkfest.org/help/.

 

--submitted by marycurtinproductions
(on behalf of HONK!)
c/o Mary Curtin
PO Box 290703, Charlestown, MA 02129
617-470-5867 (cell), mary.c...@gmail.com
"dedicated to staging insightful entertainment, particularly in non-traditional venues"
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