The Sumida river display descends from a 1733 fireworks event held after a famine and epidemic, which makes it the oldest in Tokyo and the origin of the competitive Japanese firework tradition — two rival pyrotechnic houses, Tamaya and Kagiya, whose names are still shouted at displays.
Around twenty thousand shells are fired from two sites along the river, and something close to a million people watch from the banks, the bridges and the surrounding streets, most of them in yukata.
The committee publishes attendance per edition; we have not collected a dated one.
It is anchored to the last Saturday of July. Heavy weather cancels it rather than postponing it in some years, which — with the crowd density and the closed stations — makes it the Tokyo event most worth having a fallback plan for.
PlanningAnchored to the last Saturday of July; cancellation for weather is a real possibility, not a postponement.
Dates
computed from the rule
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.
ConditionalCancelled outright in heavy rain or wind — not postponed in every year.