Japan - Event

The small town of Chichibu, near Tokyo, is the annual venue for fireworks, traditional performing arts and a gorgeous action-packed parade of huge, illuminated floats in one of Japan's most spectacular yomatsuri (night festivals).

This is counted as one of the three grandest float festivals in Japan. Huge floats become stages upon which children perform traditional Kabuki dramas and folk dances. Stalls sell festival foods, beer and hot sake, and street entertainers and musicians perform for the throngs of locals and tourists.

The highlight is undoubtedly the parade in the evening. At around 7pm six huge floats leave the grounds of Chichibu Shrine, decorated with painted carvings and flowers and illuminated with coloured lanterns. They make their noisy drunken way through the streets of the town against a backdrop of fireworks.

Each float is at least 10 metres high, weighs around 10 tons and is pulled by dozens of enthusiastic young men in festival costumes. The parade is accompanied by wild drumming and flute music. The logistics of getting the enormous, not-altogether-stable, floats around the town's many street corners presents an interesting (and rather dangerous) challenge! The crowds are vast, but very good humoured, and the party goes on all night.

This wonderful festival has a history dating back more than 300 years and is held in honour of the town's six protective kami (deities), each of which occupies one of the floats.