Description
HONK! festivals are a different sort of music festival. These festivals are part of a global renaissance of community street band culture providing music by the people for the people. We at HONK! Fest West are thrilled to be a local mainstay of this musical renaissance. HONK! Fest West 2012 takes place June 1-3 in Seattle, and is free.
June 1: Georgetown (12th Ave S & S Vine St) 6-10pm
June 2: Gas Works Park (Fremont) 12pm - 6pm
June 3: EMP Sky Church (Seattle Center) 2pm - 4pm
HONK! bands are typically acoustic and mobile, often politically aware and articulate, and always high spirited. There is a rich community ethic amongst many HONK!ers, who use their music to erode the barriers between professional and novice, and between audience and performers. Although uniforms are sometimes used as a performance tool, individuality is key, and group members often hail from all range of classes, ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds. Perhaps most importantly, the honkers’ ultimate goal is to have fun, to relish the art of making fun as a form of individual and collective transcendence, and to encourage others to see and do the same.
These 'marching bands’ take to the streets with a common purpose: to share music with the public and shatter exclusionary principles and defy simple categorizations. These are not the town bands of old - they are the new, the fresh: a sonic carnivàle spectaculare!
This year’s HONK! Fest West will be the biggest yet. Twenty-five (!!) bands from all over North America are converging on the streets and parks of Seattle to entertain the public with musical innovation and exploration.
We have partnered with Shunpike, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports the arts, as our fiscal sponsor. Donations to HONK! Fest West and Shunpike will be tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law, and may be eligible for employer matching.
Our festival is part musical gathering, part community activism. Many of us play an instrument. Some don’t. But all of us have found that live, energetic, mobile, acoustic music--no matter which side of the mouthpiece you are on--brings audience and band together in something like family. A raucous, playful family.
