🏮 Fujinomiya Matsuri

富士宮まつり

Fujinomiya, Shizuoka (浅間大社) · Every year, 3–5 November

Traditional performing artsFood stallsFloats

50 days to go
Rooms around Fujinomiya, Shizuoka fill up while the festival is on.

The Fujinomiya Matsuri is a three-day festival held in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Prefecture, every year from November 3 to 5. Coinciding with the autumn grand festival of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine, parishioner neighborhoods pull yamaboko (festival floats) and yatai (food or performance stalls) through the city, and Fujinomiya hayashi (festival music) is performed; the music is a Shizuoka Prefectural-designated intangible folk cultural property. Until 2011 it was called the Fujinomiya Aki Matsuri. The festival has a long history: harvest rituals have been held since 806, when Sengen Taisha was enshrined. Records of the tsuke-matsuri (attached festival) by parishioner neighborhoods are scarce, but a diary kept in 1860 by the head of a town brewer, the Sode Nikki, contains the entry 'many yagura (towers) were drawn out,' suggesting the festival already existed by the late Edo period. It is said to have derived from a festival held by officials in the Heian period and developed as a people's festival giving thanks for good harvests. The highlights are the Miyamairi on the first day, November 3, when twenty neighborhoods gather at Sengen Taisha and dedicate hayashi music, and the main festival on November 4, when yamaboko and yatai gather around Sengen Taisha. After the ceremony, a simultaneous hayashi performance and group dance take place, and competitions and dances unfold at various spots within the communal event area.

Getting there

Rail: JR Central Minobu Line, Fujinomiya Station (3-minute walk from the South Exit). By car: Tomei Expressway, Fuji Interchange → Nishi-Fuji Road (National Route 139) → via Shizuoka Prefectural Route 414, Fuji-Fujinomiya Line.