Twelve decorated hanayatai floats from the villages around Nikkō process to the Futarasan shrine over five days. What distinguishes the festival is its law: the order of entry, who may overtake whom, how floats pass one another and how they greet are fixed by custom, and breaches have historically led to fights and to the festival being suspended.
No attendance figure is collected in this pass.
Nikkō is a UNESCO site for the Tōshōgū mausoleum complex, two hours north of Tokyo, and the April festival falls as the mountain blossom opens — about a fortnight after the city's.
The partner calendar lists it, which is unusual: Yayoi Matsuri is almost absent from English-language festival listings and is a serious piece of living ritual law.
PlanningFixed on 13–17 April; the order and conduct of the floats is governed by rules that have caused real disputes.
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.