Honk! Learning from a Dynamic Public Music Festival
The street felt alive with sound and motion. Horns and vibrant brass blared against a backdrop of upbeat percussion. Big band, boom band: People of all colors and types thronged, many dressed in bright colors with faces painted, adorned in festival-ware. Somerville, a suburb of Boston, was a multicultural area and here that fact shone clear. Energy thrummed. Laughter pealed.
I don't remember how Randy and I heard about the street festival, called HONK!, or whether we just happened upon it on our way through Davis Square that weekend in Massachusetts, over 10 years ago now. We wandered along the side streets adjacent to Davis Square for several hours, listening to band after band. Each had their own dynamic sound and feel.
HONK! is an annual festival for activist street musicians and marching bands that play music for a cause. Many of the bands were from the northeast. Some traveled from across the continent. It's a preeminent example of city culture done well: parades, music, people, connection, community.
The festival came up in conversation recently because Randy and I were talking about local city culture. We live in a tourist area—lakes and mountains and resorts. What other culture can come from North Idaho? How do we build up local culture? The experience at HONK! had stuck with Randy as an amazing cultural phenomenon (me, too, but Randy even more so).
(Read: Seven Principles to Guide Development in Kootenai County)
We couldn't replicate the festival here—and we wouldn't want to. Many of the bands, while engaging and exciting, lean into activism that isn't a good fit for our area or many local audiences. But what if we could capture the same energy and participatory atmosphere? What kind of music experience could be created that has a North Idaho in flavor?
Every city in our metropolitan area already holds "Music in the Park" events all summer long. There's a street music week in June and concerts in Sandpoint. Art on the Green brings music and other art to the public annually.
If the right person who was already connected to the local music scene was inspired, they could create a local festival for participatory music and street music. Perhaps it starts more pop-up, with anyone and everyone invited to set up along a street. One of our friends hosts an annual Hootenanny where everyone is invited to play, sing, and dance. Could that happen at a larger scale? What if local marching bands were invited to play, too? What else could we add?
It's a fun, and worthwhile, thought experiment. We're in North Idaho to stay. We want our kids to want to stay here, too. One piece of making the area appealing is culture. So there's more to think about: what art, music, intellectual life, and so forth do we want to see? How do we build it here?
(Read: How We Are Intentionally Building Strong Community Ties)
Header image credit:Chris Devers, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0