🏮 Festivals / Matsuri · 114 destinations · 431 activities
A matsuri transforms the town it happens in, and most of them run for two or three days a year. That makes them the most rigid element of a trip: either they line up with your dates or they do not exist for you. Here is what each destination holds and its real window, including the inconvenient detail that for the big ones accommodation sells out months ahead.
Fixed date: 22 October, the same day as the Jidai Matsuri, so you have to choose. At around 18:00 the kagaribi are lit in front of every house in the village of Kurama and then teams of men carry torches several metres long along the single street towards Yuki shrine. Admission is free, but the logistics are the real problem: the village is tiny, the Eizan railway is the only practical way in, one-way pedestrian flow is enforced, there are access closures and queues of hours to get back, with the last train very tight. In 2022 it was held in a reduced version and the final carrying up of the mikoshi was dropped; I could not verify whether that part has been fully restored, so check with the shrine or the Sakyo ward office in October. Wear closed shoes, not synthetic clothing, and expect to get back in the small hours.
Fixed date: 25 February at Kitano Tenmangu, the anniversary of the death of Sugawara no Michizane, with the plum in blossom. Besides the rite, a nodate is set up, an open-air tea ceremony served by geiko and maiko from Kamishichiken, the district next to the shrine. Tickets for the nodate are limited and sell out; I have not been able to verify the price or the sales system for the 2027 edition, so confirm with the shrine in January. Access to the precinct and the market stalls is free.
On the night of 16 August five giant bonfires shaped as characters and figures are lit on the mountains ringing the city, to see off the dead of Obon. The same night of 16 August the Torii-gata at Sagano is also lit and the Arashiyama Toro Nagashi is held, so you have to choose a part of the city: they cannot all be seen from one spot.
Fixed dates: 1 to 3 January, with queues from midnight on the 31st. Fushimi Inari Taisha and Yasaka Jinja are Kyoto's two mass focal points and both allow access through the night; Fushimi is right beside JR Inari station, which on those days runs one-way flow and extra services. The visitor figures circulating for Fushimi are around two and a half million people over the three days, but I have not been able to verify them in an official source: worth confirming. The full climb up the Senbon Torii is unworkable on those days; for the mountain circuit you need to come back from 5 or 6 January. The food stalls on the approach to Fushimi run for more days than the official three.
Watch for the change of calendar: up to the 75th edition it was held on fixed dates, 1 and 2 June, but the city council has announced that from the 76th, in 2027, it moves to the first Friday and Saturday of June. In 2026 it was on 1 and 2 June, from 18:00 to 20:30, with doors opening at 17:00, in the outer grounds of Heian Jingu, and with the Rohm Theatre Kyoto as the alternative venue in case of rain. Tickets 4,000 yen general, 3,000 for under-23s and up to 15,000 for the premium seats; advance sales from 1 April at Ticket Pia and Lawson. Each night combines a noh piece from a different school with a kyogen; there are no subtitles, so read the plot beforehand.
Wordless Buddhist pantomime, accompanied only by gong, drum and flute, in the Dainenbutsu-do of Mibu-dera, a building listed as an Important Cultural Property. Three windows a year: setsubun, on 2 and 3 February from 17:00 to 20:00 with a performance every hour and free admission; the big spring run from 29 April to 5 May, fixed dates, from 13:00 to 17:30 and with a night session on the last day; and the October long weekend that includes Sports Day, 3 days, from 13:00 to 17:30, which in 2026 fell on 10, 11 and 12 October. Outside setsubun it costs 1,000 yen for adults and 500 for junior and senior high school students. There is no booking and no numbered seating: tickets on the day and open seating. Photography is banned. The repertoire runs to 30 pieces and the most famous, Horakuwari, always opens the run by smashing hundreds of clay plates. Designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976, the first in the prefecture.
One of Edo's three great festivals, held in full ONLY in odd years: on Saturday a procession of nearly a thousand people covers thirty kilometres through Kanda, Nihonbashi and Marunouchi; on Sunday more than two hundred mikoshi enter the shrine. Even years bring the kage-matsuri, a reduced, near-internal version.
In the hon-matsuri, fifty-four neighbourhood mikoshi parade together while the crowd drenches the bearers with buckets and hoses as a purification rite. The big one is EVERY THREE YEARS: 2026 was one, the next is 2029. You will end up soaked, and soaking spectators is not part of the rite.
Festival of the shrine that guarded Edo Castle, with the Shinko-sai procession of some three hundred participants in court dress crossing the financial district over nine hours. Even years only: 2026 ran 7 to 17 June and the next big one is 2028.
The largest awa dance festival outside Tokushima: 10,000 dancers and close to a million spectators in streets five metres wide, on the last weekend of August. There are paid stands and free stretches, and the stations jam solid once it ends.
A market licensed since 1578 and an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Tokyo, set up on only four days a year: 15 and 16 December and 15 and 16 January, from nine to eight. 700 stalls of cloth, plants and tools, and freshly pounded daikan mochi.
The largest fanzine market in the world, with hundreds of thousands of attendees and a cosplay area, in August and in late December. A paid wristband is needed for each day, there are queues before dawn, extreme heat in summer, and no photography outside the cosplay area.
Two floats meet head-on at a junction, rotate their upper platforms to face each other, and their musicians compete on flute and drum until one gives way. It is the heart of the festival, at night only, on 17 and 18 October 2026. They weigh tonnes and are moved by neighbourhood teams: never cross in front of one, and do not climb onto doorways.
The Enmusubi Furin hangs some two thousand Edo glass wind chimes along a shrine corridor and lights the adjoining river at night. In 2026 it ran 27 June to 6 September and it is among the most photographed events in Saitama, with the queues that implies: keep moving, do not camp in the corridor.
The Hatsu-Daishi on 3 January fills the Kita-in grounds with daruma stalls and with people coming to return last year's and buy a bigger one. Kawagoe draws more people that day than on 1 January.
A Shinto shrine over a thousand years old, famous for its good-luck rituals for love and for its summer wind chime (furin) festival.
An autumn festival designated a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, in which dozens of ornately decorated floats parade through the city's historic quarter.
The Hyakumanto Natsu Matsuri was held on 25 and 26 July 2026 and began in the 19th century in memory of the feudal lord of Kawagoe. It is the residents' festival, with the road closed from 4pm to 9pm between Honkawagoe and Satsunoji.
From 1 to 25 December each of the seven Yamate houses is decorated after the Christmas of a different country by local florists and designers, with occasional concerts. Entry to all of them is free; on Fridays and Saturdays they stay open until 18:00, and the Italian Garden sets out a candle garden at dusk on one evening around the 20th. It is also the time of year with the longest queue at Berrick Hall.
From 17 to 19 July the great Soto Zen monastery in Tsurumi holds a three-evening bon odori on its forecourt, 17:30 to 20:30, with the monks themselves dancing in the circle and thousands of lanterns offered by the Kokaramon gate. It began in memory of the victims of the 1945 Yokohama air raid and the 1963 Tsurumi rail disaster, and it is still a neighbourhood affair: free, with food stalls and tens of thousands of locals. Five minutes from Tsurumi station.
On a weekend in mid-April the drinking district of Noge turns into a stage: jugglers, mime artists, acrobats and music at twenty-odd spots across Noge, Sakuragicho and Miyakobashi street. It is free, performers pass the hat, and the 2026 edition was the 51st, on 18 and 19 April. Families come in numbers and the area becomes impossible by mid-afternoon.
The park around the baseball stadium fills with more than a hundred thousand tulips from late March to mid-April, and in the first days of April the flower fair adds stalls and display beds in Yamashita Park and along Nihon-odori as well. It is all free and outdoors, and it is the most central flower outing in the city: two minutes from Kannai and from Chinatown.
Around 3,500 fireworks over the bay on a Saturday in late August, watched from the sand of Umi-no-Koen, the city's only beach: it is Yokohama's most informal fireworks night and the only one you can watch barefoot. It is free, it is cancelled in bad weather, and Seaside Line trains leave packed afterwards. The 2026 edition was the 52nd, on 22 August.
Around five hundred plum trees bloom in waves from early February to the first days of March, among them the sprawling garyobai and the green-calyx ryokugakubai donated by Shanghai in 1977. During Kanbaikai there is free barley tea on weekends from 10:00 to 15:30 and a plum bonsai show in mid-February; only the regular garden admission applies.
A centuries-old July festival, recognized as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, in which teams carry huge decorated floats and run barefoot through the streets of Hakata at dawn on the 15th.
On 3 and 4 May, a parade of some 30,000 participants clacking wooden rice spoons, descended from the Matsubayashi of 1179. It is the Japanese festival with the largest audience of the whole Golden Week, with more than two million spectators.
For four nights a year, fourteen temples and shrines in the old town open from 17:30 to 21:00 with their gardens lit, among them Shofukuji, Tochoji, Myorakuji, Ryuguji and Kushida, which the rest of the year shut at dusk. The combined ticket costs 2,450 yen (1,950 if bought months ahead) and is good for one entry to each paying site; children up to junior high get in free with an adult. In 2026 it runs from 31 October to 3 November.
From 1 to 14 July fourteen decorated floats over ten metres tall go up across the city, made by the same craftsmen who make Hakata dolls: one in Tenjin, one at Canal City, one at the station, one at Kushida Shrine. They are not the ones raced on the 15th, which are far lower; these stand still, are free to see at any hour and are lit at night. The front face tells a scene from history and the back, more often than not, a manga or a figure in the news.
Kushida Shrine's autumn festival, on 23 and 24 October, far less known than the Yamakasa and for that reason far calmer: a procession with an ox-drawn cart, children in court dress, a brass band and a chrysanthemum display in the grounds. It is free and gives a sense of how the shrine is lived outside July, when the district is not swamped with cameras.
One of Japan's three great Hachiman shrines, with the 'surrender of the enemy country' plaque tied to the Mongol invasions. It hosts the Hojoya in September and the Tamaseseri in January.
One of Japan's three great water festivals: boats carrying gagaku court music cross the bay by night from the shrine. It follows the lunar calendar, the 17th day of the sixth month, so the date shifts each year between July and August.
On 31 December the locals drag huge burning torches along the beach in front of the torii to ask for protection against fire. After the Reikado fire in May 2026 it carries a particular weight.
The yamabushi cross a bed of embers barefoot on 15 April and 15 November; afterwards the public can cross free of charge. It is among the most intense things that happen on the island.
On one weekend in February, grills and pots of oyster soup are set up beside the pier at token prices. It is the best excuse to visit the island in low season.
From 16 to 18 April, the court dances that tradition attributes to Taira no Kiyomori are performed on the shrine's raised stage, with a different programme each day.
Dozens of men in loincloths compete in the water for a wooden ball hung in front of the shrine. The date depends on the tide, normally a weekend in late August. It is a religious rite: photograph it from the shore, without going into the water.
Kasuga Taisha preserves an unbroken lineage of bugaku, the court dance imported from the continent in the 8th century, and performs it on several dates through the year, with the Kasuga Wakamiya On-Matsuri in December as the great occasion. This is the music and dance the Nara court heard, played on the spot it was written for.
On 3 February and on 14 and 15 August the 3,000 stone and bronze lanterns of Kasuga shrine are lit at once, among the forest.
From 1 to 14 March, monks run along the temple gallery with giant torches throwing sparks over the crowd: a ritual that has not been interrupted for a single year since 752.
From 15 to 18 December, a period procession and ancient performing arts held without interruption since 1136, Intangible Cultural Heritage.
There is no keep, but there are walls, moats and the donjon platform turned into a viewpoint, all free to enter: gravestones and even an upside-down Buddhist statue were reused in the masonry and are signposted. About a thousand cherry trees cover it in late March, and during the Oshiro Matsuri (24 March to 7 April in 2026) there are night illuminations, a costume parade and a goldfish show.
In August, 20,000 candles light the paths and ponds of the park, with the deer moving among them.
On 18 November 2026 at seven in the evening the priests receive the gods on the sand at Inasa with torches and escort them in procession to Izumo Taisha. It is a religious rite, not a show: no flash, lights off when asked, and silence. Dress warmly.
During Kamiari-zuki the gods deliberate over human matches, and rites are held at the Jukusha, the rows of huts where they lodge. The Enmusubi Taisai on 23 and 25 November 2026 requires an application in advance.
From 26 September to 18 October 2026, on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays only, the castle and moat fill with paper lanterns and the Horikawa runs night cruises. It is the best night of the year in Matsue.
Miho Jinja offers sacred music and dance before the altar every day, something rarely seen outside a festival. Confirm the time at the shrine on the day itself.
On 12 October 2026 at 9:10 the university relay of 45 kilometres to the Izumo Dome starts in front of the main torii of Izumo Taisha. It is a national event and fills the city, so book well ahead or avoid the date.
The last stop for the eight million deities before they return to their own lands, which makes it the real close of the month of the gods. Small, uncrowded and with a very different atmosphere from Izumo Taisha.
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