We’ve written plenty about the history and culture of summer festivals. But fall also has its fair share of matsuri (festivals). From fireworks and cuisine to traditional music and dance, there are several festivals to enjoy as the weather cools.
September’s Seiryu-e Dragon Festival (Kyoto), October’s Nagasaki Okunichi and November’s Izumo Kamiari Festival (Shimane) revolve around Japan’s Shinto deities coming and going from local shrines. Meanwhile, other festivals can be purely secular and highlight a region’s food and drink, like Sapporo Autumn Fest (Hokkaido), or live music, such as Jozenji Street Jazz Festival (Miyagi).
Here’s a list of 2024 fall festivals in Japan to get you started.
September
The lions dance during Ibaraki’s Ibaraki Ishioka Festival.
The scorching summer temperatures are finally beginning to cool. Why not head outside for an early fall festival?
Beginning in 1987, the Jozenji Street Jazz Festival is one of Sendai’s largest annual events. It features not just jazz but all types of music, from pop to gospel, and it is completely free to attend.
First held in 1709, this festival celebrated the completion of the town’s construction. In the present, the festive atmosphere continues with floats constructed by surrounding districts, taiko drumming and ceremonial chanting.
With roots in the 14th century, this festival boasts massive floats made by professionals and amateurs. In the evenings, the illuminated floats light up the night and can tower up to 12 meters high.
This festival is a culinary celebration of Sapporo and Hokkaido. Over 300 participating food and drink vendors, from souvenir stores to luxury restaurants, line up for over a kilometer in Odori Park.
The Tonegawa Fireworks Festival features a program produced by four acclaimed pyrotechnicians and a dazzling array of 30,000 fireworks. The show lasts 90 minutes and is accompanied by synchronized music and lights.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Atami Marine Fireworks Festival, which occurs regularly throughout the year. The venue for this fireworks festival is spectacular, as it is located on the water for clear views and is surrounded by mountains, which help to insulate the sound.
The Ishioka Festival is one of the largest traditional festivals in Ibaraki Prefecture, held over three days around mid-September. The festival features a grand procession of elaborately decorated mikoshi (portable shrines) and dashi (festival floats). A highlight is the lion dance, performed to drive away evil spirits and bring good fortune, along with lively taiko drumming and traditional music.
Starting in 2000, the Seiryu-e Dragon Festival occurs in and around the famous Kiyomizu-dera Temple. Performers dressed as traditional priests, soldiers and retinue members parade through the streets surrounding the temple, with pole-bearers carrying the festival star, the legendary Blue Dragon.
This somber yet stunning festival sees dragon-headed boats drift through glowing lanterns on Sarusawa Lake to commemorate an uneme (an inner court lady) who was rejected by the Emperor and drowned herself in the Nara period.
This moon-viewing festival under the full harvest moon celebrates Japanese haiku and tanka poetry with the taisha’s enshrined Kami (Gods) as inspiration and protection. Poets can be chosen to read their writing atop the beautiful Sorihashi bridge, followed by traditional dances.
The Mozu Hachiman Shrine Festival’s main attraction is a large procession of 18 futon daiko (decorated taiko drums). The drums are large enough to be carried by 70 people per drum, and the drumming fills the air as the procession makes its way to the shrine.
This year marks the 78th anniversary of the Nantan City Fireworks Festival, which includes food stalls, live music performances, a drone light show and a brilliant display of 2000 fireworks.
Visit Yasui Konpira-gu for a unique historical hairstyle parade and ceremony. This shrine is home to a burial mound dedicated to women’s hair combs and cases, where the God Omononushi once hid.
Don’t miss the Sasebo Seaside Festival, where 3,500 fireworks explode across the night sky. And enjoy a weekend filled with entertainment, from building a wooden jungle gym to tug-of-war on water.
This Beers of Japan Festival showcases a broad range of Japanese craft beers, including The Brewmaster, Hokkaido Abashiri Beer and many more. The event will also feature live music performances and gourmet hamburgers.
This festival, which takes place within the Glover Garden in Nagasaki, celebrates the historical influences of foreign settlements and culture on this port city. The event will feature a bazaar, a choir, a parade, food and drinks.
The ringing of furin (wind chimes) is said to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune. This festival, which takes place at the Senkoji Temple in Hiroshima, showcases hundreds of brightly colored wind chimes hung from a bamboo frame.
October
Niigata’s Autumn Fox Festival.
Check out these October matsuri featuring traditional Japanese mythology front and center.
The Michinoku Yosakoi is a multi-city festival, and about 250 municipalities participate across Japan to celebrate local culture, folk songs and traditional dancing.
This UNESCO-recognized cultural heritage event, which takes place over two days, showcases 26 portable shrines decorated with lanterns that parade the streets of Kanuma.
Created to welcome a good fall harvest, this festival, held at the Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine, involves a parade of 11 decorated floats throughout the city.
A mystical festival where participants don fox masks and carry paper lanterns through the streets. It symbolizes protection, good fortune and celebrates the connection between the fox spirit and the harvest.
Held twice a year, this matsuri recreates the enshrinement of Ieyasu Tokugawa’s spirit in his Nikko mausoleum. Featuring performances of archers on horseback and a procession of 1,000 participants in historical costume, this festival is a trip back to the Edo period.
Celebrate the 70th Nagoya Festival in 2024! The highlight of this fest is the Hometown Heroes parade, in which men dress as Aichi’s three great warriors of the past (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu) and their military entourage march through the streets.
This matsuri commemorating the Nihonbashi Highway celebrates the traditional roadways from Edo (Tokyo) to all the feudal domains and fittingly features food and performances from across the country.
The Saijo Festival was inaugurated to thank the Shinto gods for a bountiful harvest. It takes place across four shrines and includes the parading of 80 danjiri and mikoshi.
Like other danjiri festivals, this one in Izushi spotlights floats carried by men fighting for dominance. Held to give gratitude for good harvests, this matsuri is an exciting event filled with clashing wooden carts shaped like portable Shinto shrines.
This annual festival takes place at the Matsubara Hachiman Shrine in Himeji. It’s one of the oldest and most unique events in Japan, where three large portable shrines are purposefully smashed together in a fight.
One of the largest festivals in Shikoku, the 1000-year-old Niihama Taiko festival involves a grand display of giant decorated taiko drums that stand 5.5 meters tall and weigh about 3 tons.
For three days, nine large wooden floats and hundreds of demons parade through the streets of Iga, a former castle town. With taiko, dance performances, and lanterns lighting up the night, this matsuri celebrates nearly 400 years of local history and culture.
The Jidai Matsuri’s main event is a remarkable large-scale procession involving 2000 people and about 70 horses and oxen, traveling for 2 km. The participants are clad in traditional clothing representing 8 different periods of Japanese history.
Beginning in 1634, this festival began when a Noh performance song was dedicated to the Suwa Shrine’s Kami (gods). Don’t miss the Dragon Dance and Whale Spouting Dance, designated National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties.
Held at Kushida Shrine, this 1,200-year-old festival celebrates the autumn harvest. It features an elaborate mikoshipulled by an ox through the streets of Hakata, a parade, a fall produce market, and a light-up event.
November
The fiery Sukagawa Taimatsu Akashi
festival in Fukushima.
In November, leaves are changing colors in many parts of Japan. Enjoy some of these festivals set against backdrops of fiery foliage.
This festival celebrates the Fujiwara family, who helped construct Chusonji Temple and its surrounding area. Under the autumn foliage, you can enjoy parades and performances with Heian-era costumes.
One of Japan’s three greatest fire festivals, Taimatsu Akashi burns up the night with groups of all ages and genders carrying giant wooden torches. This procession makes its way up to the summit of Mount Gorozan, seemingly engulfing it in flames.
Although the festival is held across Japan, the largest Tori-no-Ichi matsuri is in Asakusa. Dating back to the Edo period, this festival falls on three auspicious days in November and hosts almost 1,000 vendors selling food and matsuri goods.
While most cherry blossoms bloom in spring, the ones at this festival burst into beautiful pinks again in the fall. Head to Obara for the rare treat of autumn leaves and the famed fall cherry blossoms.
Shichimi are lion dances set to traditional Japanese instruments. They are held in the fall to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. Come see elaborately designed lions worn by one or two performers dance in unison.
Dedicated to Acala, a Buddhist guardian deity known for its fiery appearance and powerful sword, the Fire-Walking Festival combats our bad luck through fiery purification.
Head to Kagoshima City for one of the largest matsuri in southern Kyushu. This two-day event features taiko drummers and over 20,000 dancers taking to the streets.
Held to bring good luck in marriage, this matsuri spotlights a bride and groom wearing white fox masks. Parading in the streets surrounded by friends and relatives, this festival makes for a unique experience celebrating bonds of matrimony.
Attracting over 50,000 spectators every year, Karatsu Okunichi features processions of lions, dragons and fish throughout the city. Celebrate like a local over an entire perch stuffed with daikon, eggs and more.
Have you attended any of these fall festivals in Japan? We’d love to hear from you below!
Canadian writer and translator with a doctorate in history. She’s either running after her little ones or in her Kyushu garden with a cup of yame-cha and a book.
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