The HONK! Festival 19th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands kicks off on Thursday, October 3, with the Pre-HONK! Brass Band Blowout in Union Square.

The HONK! Festival 19th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands takes place October 4–6, throughout Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston neighborhoods. Outdoors rain or shine.

HONK! Festival 2024 has revealed their participating bands roster for this year’s 19th annual gathering of activist street musicians.

The current count is at 29+ unplugged mobile bands, several who will travel some distance, as far away as Brazil, as well as from NOLA, Minneapolis (MN), NYC and Brooklyn (NY), Pittsburgh (PA), Austin (TX), Olympia and Seattle (WA), Madison (WI). With much representation from New England-based groups, HONK! 2024 will swell to a capacity of at least 29 bands, with several of those bands being as large as 30 or more players, all performing unplugged right on the streets of Davis and Harvard Squares.

For those who are not familiar, HONK! is an annual uproariously jubilant purposeful gathering held every October since 2006. The entire Festival is inspired by a commitment to social change through music, embodied in the powerful upbeat sounds generated by activist street bands who have traveled from near and far to participate in this particular annual HONK! Because, after all, this is where the HONK! movement all started, spawning many a HONK! elsewhere since then. Hence, this world-wide HONK! phenomenon warrants its own wiki to boot: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HONK!

HONK! is now short-hand for what is fully expressed at honkfest.org/about/: “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 ca// HONK!”

When announcing there wiII be a total of 29 bands with a plus sign, it definitely implies that between now and the first weekend in October, there will be opportunities that will surface for more musicians to gather and be involved.

HONK! 2024 will follow the familiar tried and true scheduling patterns, with outdoor street level band concerts held throughout Somerville’s Davis Square and the nearby neighborhoods on HONK! Friday and Saturday. Then on to the vast “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet” Parade, as it wends its way from Davis Square to Harvard Square in Cambridge, on HONK! Sunday, to participate in Harvard Square’s 45th annual Oktoberfest. But every year there are also the HONK! surprise(ing) elements, often reflecting the signs of our particular given times. The schedule of events are as follows:

Thursday, October 3

Pre-HONK! Brass Band Blowout in Union Square, Somerville

Friday, October 4

Lantern-making workshops

4:00 – 6:00 p.m., Hodgkins-Curtin Park, Holland St. between Paulina St. and Simpson Ave. in Somerville

Free and open to the public. 

Lantern parades

6:30 – 7:30 p.m., stepping off from and returning to Hodgkins-Curtin Park, Somerville

These nighttime parades are small-scale processions, leaving from and returning to Hodgkins-Curtin Park and traversing the surrounding neighborhoods. We are inviting local artists and families to bring their own illuminations, and we also invite musicians to build lanterns, wear bike lights, glow sticks, any kind of blinking-glittering-glowing ornaments you like. More info can be found here.

Friday Night in Union Square

See HONK! bands play at multiple locations in Union Square, both within walking distance!

Saturday, October 5

HONK! in Davis Square

Opening ceremonies at noon in Seven Hills Park.

Bands play all afternoon from 1:00 to 9:00 p.m. in locations around Davis Square rain or shine.

Elm Street Interactive Area

1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

We are closing Elm Street to cars and turning it into a dynamic arena for interactive art making and activism. Please join in — work with our amazing HONK! artists to create something for yourself or for the Sunday Parade. Learn about some urgent issues with the grass roots volunteers and organizers working on community issues. Help amplify messages for positive change and activist causes with art.

Sunday, October 6

The HONK! Parade

12:00 – 2:00 p.m. down Mass. Ave. from Davis Square to Harvard Square

Sunday in Harvard Square

Performances on the Main Stage and other performance venues at Oktoberfest 2:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Contact info: honkfest.org/contact/, info@honkfest.org, 781-285-8639.