Tokyo Stroll Supplement: Regular Events and Festivals

This page is a guide to regular event dates in Tokyo which people may be interested in checking out. It is also part of the web supplement for my book Tokyo Stroll. Locations listed in parenthesis are chapter names in Tokyo Stroll, when the book comes out page numbers will be added.

Perhaps the best way to put this page to use is to make a calendar of the days you plan to be in Tokyo and then add information from the charts that fit in those dates.

These charts show when regular dated events in Tokyo take place. Given that there are several ways to schedule these events I have organized the information by month depending on the method used to set event dates.

• The first chart is for events that take place every day on a set day or once in a season but not on a specific month.
• The second chart is for events that take place in a specific month on a specific date or on floating (variable) dates such as every January, The Day of the Serpent, 2nd Monday, or Mid January, etc.

Most religious feast or festival days have special events or booths selling food etc. A few are just days worshipers are more likely to visit as doing so is held to grant special merit.

Entries that are not at a specific temple, shrine, or building in Tokyo Stroll may be linked to the events official website.

NOTES:

• During the COVID-19 pandemic many events may have had date changes, been cancelled, restricted, moved to online only, or scaled down.
  
• The pandemic has also made it hard to verify dates of some regular events. I have a list of hundreds of events I shall be working through to verify dates and then add them to this table.
• During national holidays some institutions and businesses may be closed. If the holiday is on a Monday some museums and shops may be open and closed on the following Tuesday. For NewYears and the following two days most will be closed.
  
• The Japanese word Matsuri means festival. These may be religious or secular, the line between the two is nebulous.