DC Activist Street Band, followed by the 700-foot-long “We the People” preamble banner, during the We The People 250 March, held in DC on July 4, 2026
~Photo courtesy of DC Activist Street Band

Heads up! The 21st annual HONK! Festival is already in its fine-tuning stage, preparing to raise a merry impossible-to-ignore ruckus during this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day weekend, with the Festival covering Friday thru Sunday, October 9-11. When the initial call went out in the Spring for activist street band participation, over 65 bands applied, hailing from all over the country. It will take a while to narrow down the participation to a manageable size. But suffice it to say that this year’s Festival will indeed be very robust. All prompted by the urgency to loudly convene and joyously perform. With a common goal, to gather in support of “No justice. No peace.”

If you are not familiar with HONK! – really? – It was initiated in Somerville back in 2006 by members of what was then called the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band. Then, with a formal name change in 2024, the Good Trouble Brass Band continues to be the local organizing host band for the HONK! phenomenon, an international movement. Feel free to check it all out at HONK!’s own source: honkfest.org. Followed by perusing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HONK! for the full scope of HONK! world-wide.

“By describing HONK! bands as
activist, we are referring to
bands which are socially engaged
— some in direct action
and outright political protest,
others in community building,
be it performing for social justice
or community-based
organizations or conducting
workshops in the public schools.
Further, by performing at
street level, usually for free,
without sound amplification
and with very little distance
between artist and audience,
HONK! bands create a
participatory spectacle to

reclaim public space in ways
that place them at the
heart of activist politics.”
(honkfest.org/about/)

In years prior to 2025, HONK! outdoor band concerts, held rain or shine throughout Somerville and its adjacent cities, included activist bands travelling in from beyond our U.S. borders. However, given the signs of these unsettling times, the bands selected this year will all come from the United States. In a gesture of solidarity with street bands from around the world, and inspired by its success last year, HONK! will once again host a video livestream of international bands, outdoors on Elm Street on Saturday, October 10th.

Other initiatives that will give more chances for locals to actively participate include ArtHONK!, which offers artists, activists, and community groups an opportunity to be directly involved in creating free interactive art-making activities for the public during HONK! Saturday in Davis Square. Plus, this year’s HONK! will be offering new opportunities for audience vocal participation, inspired by the Singing Resistance movement born out of Minneapolis shortly after the killing of Renee Good.

Other gatherings planned throughout Somerville’s neighborhoods will be familiar to annual attendees of HONK!, including lantern-making workshops and parades on Friday evening, band showcases in Union Square also on Friday evening, and the huge upbeat “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet” Parade that spreads out its robust vibe as it makes its way into Harvard Square for the 47th annual Oktoberfest on Sunday. In other words, lots of ways to get involved.

The Somerville-based HONK! organizing committee is made up of many local social and political activists, including members of HONK!’s founding and host band, the Good Trouble Brass Band. Updates for this year’s 21st annual HONK! will be posted on the following sites: honkfest.org, instagram.com/honkfest/, and facebook.com/honkfestival.

At this early stage, the HONK! Festival committee would like to give special thanks to the City of Somerville, the Somerville Arts Council, Davis Square businesses and residents and the Harvard Square Business Association for their continued support.

More details on all of this year’s Festival initiatives will be available by mid to late September. In the interim, here is the basic listings information for reference:
HONK! Festival
21st Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands.
October 9-11, 2026
Held throughout Somerville, Cambridge, and adjacent neighborhoods.
Outdoors rain or shine.
Free and open to all; if interested in volunteering, visit https://honkfest.org/help/ and contact volunteer@honkfest.org.
For further information:
honkfest.org, honkfest.org/contact/, info@honkfest.org, (617) 702-2977.

-Submitted by marycurtinproductions on behalf of the HONK! Festival