Asbury Park has hosted plenty of legendary musical gatherings over the decades, but Monmouth Arts is about to bring an entirely new level of star power to the city with its largest annual fundraiser yet. Titled Bring on the Funk, Where the Arts Get Down, the high energy celebration takes over Asbury Park on Thursday, October 29, 2026, bringing together a genuinely rare concentration of New Jersey cultural royalty under one roof for a single night.
Monmouth Arts itself has spent 55 years serving as the official arts agency for Monmouth County, funding local grants, running workshops, and supporting community programs like the Teen Arts Festival. This year’s gala functions as both a VIP cocktail reception and a full seated dinner celebration, giving the organization’s biggest fundraiser of the year a genuinely immersive, night long structure rather than a single standard awards ceremony.
The undisputed headline draw of the evening is George Clinton, the 85-year-old visionary who famously founded Parliament-Funkadelic more than six decades ago inside a Plainfield barbershop. Clinton will be on hand to accept the Lifetime Achievement in Music Award, a fitting honor for an artist whose pioneering blend of psychedelic rock, soul, and R&B permanently reshaped the trajectory of global music, making his New Jersey homecoming a genuinely rare must-see moment for anyone who grew up on his sound.
Clinton is far from the only local icon taking the stage that night, though. Nicole Atkins, the acclaimed Jersey Shore native and nationally recognized indie singer-songwriter, will receive the Outstanding Musical Achievement Award, recognizing her own significant contribution to the region’s musical identity. Dorothea Bongiovi, philanthropist and founder of the community driven JBJ Soul Kitchen, which she built alongside her husband Jon Bon Jovi, will be honored with the Outstanding Community Service Award, recognizing years of direct philanthropic work supporting the broader Jersey Shore community. Rounding out this year’s honorees, PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel will be formally recognized as a Distinguished Cultural Landmark, honoring the venue’s own long-running role in the region’s live entertainment scene.
Perhaps the honoree who most expands the scope of this year’s gala beyond music alone is Harlan Coben, who will receive the Outstanding Literary Achievement Award, a recognition celebrating both his international career and the lasting impact his thrillers have had on contemporary mystery writing. As a number one New York Times bestselling author and one of the most prolific television producers working today, Coben’s inclusion means Bring on the Funk isn’t simply celebrating music this year. It’s honoring the absolute pinnacle of New Jersey storytelling across an entirely different medium. Coben grew up in Livingston, but he holds a genuinely deep, longstanding connection to Monmouth County specifically, one he made explicit when he chose to set his popular young adult novel, and its subsequent Amazon Prime television adaptation, Shelter, directly in Asbury Park and the surrounding beach towns. That local grounding runs alongside a genuinely massive national and global footprint, since Coben has effectively become the reigning king of Netflix thriller adaptations, with worldwide hits including Fool Me Once, The Stranger, and Stay Close all carrying his name and his signature twist-driven storytelling to audiences well beyond New Jersey’s own borders. That connection ties neatly into the broader entertainment infrastructure boom reshaping the state’s economy right now, since Coben’s own success as a streaming era storyteller sits squarely within the same Jerseywood moment currently drawing major studio investment into Fort Monmouth, Newark, and Bayonne.
The night’s structure spans two connected venues, giving guests a genuinely full evening rather than a single static dinner. Festivities begin at 5:30 p.m. with the Get Up Offa That Thing VIP cocktail reception inside The Asbury Hotel, before the celebration migrates at 7 p.m. to the connected, legendary Asbury Lanes for the main dinner and award presentation, pairing a formal awards ceremony with one of the Shore’s most distinctive, gritty-turned-trendy live music venues.
True to its name, the evening promises to look every bit as vibrant as it sounds. Organizers have set a strict Funky Chic dress code for the night, with sequins highly encouraged among attendees looking to fully embrace the theme. To keep that energy moving throughout the dinner and award presentations, legendary James Brown impersonator C.P. Lacey will deliver a live performance channeling the show-stopping spirit of the Godfather of Soul directly onto the Asbury Lanes stage, giving the night’s musical entertainment a genuine connection to the funk and soul lineage the entire evening is built around honoring.
For a county arts agency that has spent more than five decades quietly funding and supporting the region’s creative ecosystem, this year’s gala is shaping up to be considerably more than a standard donor dinner. With George Clinton, Nicole Atkins, and Dorothea Bongiovi all receiving honors in the same room, alongside Harlan Coben and PNC Bank Arts Center, Bring on the Funk stands as one of the most electric, genuinely star-studded nights the Jersey Shore’s cultural calendar will see all fall. Anyone interested in attending, sponsoring, or simply learning more about the evening can find full ticket and sponsorship details directly through the official Bring on the Funk event page.
