Festival of Activist Street Bands, October 9-12, 2025

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 hat 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.

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. 

Exxpect 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: HONK! U – A Conference Celebrating 20 Years of Street Music Activism (2025) – HONK!. There will also be grass roots street actions taking place in different areas of Boston (specifics yet to be determined).

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 volunteer@honkfest.org.

For a full schedule of events visit: https://honkfest.org/2025-festival/schedule-2025/

For HONK! updates: honkfest.org, twitter.com/honkfest, facebook.com/honkfestival, instagram.com/honkfest/.

-HONK!