HONK! For Local Business
By: Alex Hutson Hively
HONK!’s organizers, musicians, audiences and critics all share the difficult task of describing what HONK! is. Intentionally amorphous, eclectic and enigmatic in nature, perhaps it is impossible to know exactly what HONK! is. Or if not impossible to know, perhaps impossible to comprehensively vocalize. Perhaps part of the beauty of HONK! is exactly that: It’s different. It’s powerful. It shakes the leaves of normalcy out of our stagnant structuralist trees. This short essay will not pretend to offer a take on what HONK! is, but rather, what HONK! does--specifically for local businesses and local economies on the day of the festival.
While I perused HONK! Fest in its Sunday Afternoon post-parade form, I couldn’t help but be aghast by the foot traffic in Harvard square.
Yes, Harvard Square is a popular place with lots of popular shops and restaurants, but today was a day like no other. I couldn’t get into Otto’s, twenty-five-minute wait for Milkbar, hell I thought Out-of-Town News had a shot of beating bankruptcy with all the people running in and out. The bustle in the square was louder than ever, music playing, dollars flying, both man and wallet joined in a moment of imbibement.
Speaking of imbibing, my first interview of the day was with Matt, of the Whoopie Wagon. Whoopie Wagon deferred the brick and mortar business model to a more mobile approach, a food truck based out of Topsfield Massachusetts that pushes homemade, delectable whoopie pies.
Unlike the other interviewees, which will come below, The Whoopie Wagon is the only business I discuss that doesn't make its home in Harvard Square. Without HONK!, The Whoopie Wagon wouldn’t have the opportunity to ever meet these crowds and serve these people. What can be noted about this is: HONK! creates a platform for local businesses to interact with a normally unreachable audience.
In addition to the many stands and trucks that make temporary stead in the Square while HONK! is in full swing, I also talked to a few full-time, brick and mortar business owners and managers. They each shared their views on HONK!’s impact for their respective enterprises.
Impressions. Impressions. Impressions. CPI, cost-per-impression, is one of the most attended-to KPIs of the marketing industry. The interviewees all noted how the raw foot traffic in the Square as a product of HONK! is one of the most valuable facets of the festival. These small businesses have nowhere near the budget to market for the number of new consumers coming in and out of their stores during HONK! Fest. HONK! brings massive amounts of people into the square and thus into the surrounding stores, all for free.
The number of impressions matter, but what matters more, perhaps, is the quality of those impressions. It’s not a stretch to say that store owners prefer that the people who walk into their business walk in happy and leave happy. In other words, they are given a good impression. As I was conducting interviews, I asked business owners how they thought the musical atmosphere influenced the crowds enjoying their day in the square.
The musical atmosphere HONK! provides changes the relationship of businesses to consumers entirely. Music has the power to grab people’s attention, for the sonic euphoria or misery they cannot help but feel. When the bands play and the music begins, the gateway opens. The listeners begin to feel pleasure from the art the bands are creating. From this initial point of pleasure, the listeners begin to turn their mind’s attention almost entirely to the band before them. Their environment then becomes a function of this music. Businesses are part of this environment. When customers walk into a store during HONK! Fest, they walk in with a more positive demeanor and a more open mind.
