Honk! is this weekend

The fourth annual Honk! Festival, featuring performances by 30 activist marching bands from around the world, runs from Oct. 9 to 11 in Boston, Somerville, Cambridge. The main event is the spectacular Honk parade of all the bands, plus hula hoopers, tumblers, Bread and Puppet Theater from Vermont, Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club, Veterans for Peace, Food Not Bombs and many more on Sunday, Oct. 11, from Davis Square in Somerville, down Mass. Ave., to Harvard Square in Cambridge. If you’ve ever felt that parades didn’t have enough marching bands, this is the event for you.

Nearly all Honk events are free. Bands perform at Boston Common, Roxbury, East Boston, East Somerville, Jamaica Plain and Cambridge on the afternoon and evening of Friday, Oct. 9. Twenty-five bands perform around Davis Square from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10. In addition to the parade Sunday, bands will perform that day on the Honk! Stage at the Harvard Square Oktoberfest from 2 to 6 p.m. followed by a final blow-out show from 8 p.m. to midnight at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square ($10 admission).

Satellite events include Pronk!, featuring performances by 13 bands at India Point Park Wickenden Street and South Water Street, Providence, from 1 to 11 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, and Brass Mayhem in Northampton and Amherst on Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 13 and 14.

Honk! Festival, various sites around Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Oct. 9 to 11, 2009.

Previously:
Our coverage of Honk 2008 and Honk 2007.

Photos of last year’s Honk! Parade by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.