🏮 Kanbara Matsuri

蒲原まつり

Niigata (Kanbara Shrine) · Every year, 30 June to 2 July

Summer festivalTraditional performing artsFood stalls

289 days to go
Rooms around Niigata fill up while the festival is on.

The Kanbara Festival is held at Kanbara Shrine in Nagamine-machi, Chuo Ward, Niigata City, every year from June 30 to July 2. Organized by the Kanbara Festival Executive Committee, it draws about 200,000 visitors and is a fixture of Niigata's summer, counted as one of the "Three Great High Festivals of Niigata" alongside the Enma Fair in Kashiwazaki City and the Murakami Grand Festival in Murakami City. Around 450 street stalls line roughly 1 km of the road in front of the shrine. Kanbara Shrine, the festival's setting, is an old shrine listed in the Engishiki register of shrines and enshrines the five elements deities including Kukunochi-no-Mikoto; in former times it was also called Gosha Shrine. It has been worshipped as a deity of agriculture, and the "Otakusen" rite held at the Kagura Hall on the night of July 1 is a Shinto ritual with 830 years of tradition that divines whether the year's rice crop will be good or poor. During the festival, Shinto rituals are held in addition to the pre-festival lantern procession, including the Great Prayer Ceremony, the Five Grains Abundance Prayer Ceremony, and the dedication of Daidai Kagura and Shinsaki Isaya Kagura. At the stalls, the Niigata specialty "poppo yaki" can be enjoyed, and within the shrine grounds there are also shooting galleries and haunted houses. A lottery called the "Yukata Festival" for visitors in yukata (light summer kimono), as well as a welfare exchange plaza, are also set up.

Getting there

The venue is the area around Kanbara Shrine. From JR Niigata Station, take a Niigata Kotsu bus for about 30 minutes and get off at "Kanbara Shrine Front"; it is immediately nearby.