Northern Japan · Aomori · Hachinohe

Hachinohe Sansha Taisai

八戸三社大祭

The joint festival of three shrines in central Hachinohe. Behind the shrine processions come floats up to eleven metres tall, rebuilt every year, that unfold their mechanical scenery as they move through the town. Held every year from 31 July to 4 August.

31 July 2027 – 4 August 2027

275 days away

Every year, 31 July, for 5 days

Future dates: 31 July 2027 · 31 July 2028 · 31 July 2029

Origin

According to VISIT Hachinohe, in 1720, when Hachinohe was suffering from poor harvests, the town’s leading citizens prayed to the deity Hōryō Daimyōjin, at what is now Ogami Shrine, for the weather to recover and the crops to ripen, and the autumn harvest was brought in safely. In thanks they collected donations from samurai and townspeople, built a portable shrine, and in the following year carried it in procession to the Chōjasan Sanshadō, now Chōjasan Shinra Shrine; this is said to be the festival’s beginning. Townspeople’s processions with puppet-topped wagons and tiger dances gradually joined in, and with the addition of Chōjasan Shinra Shrine’s procession in 1884 and Shinmei-gū’s five years later, it became a festival of three shrines. Around then the wagons, which had carried the same figures year after year, gave way to floats built anew each year, the form the festival keeps today. The float procession was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan in 2004, and in 2016 it was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage as one of the Yama, Hoko, Yatai float festivals of Japan.

What to look for

The main events are the Otōri procession on 1 August and the Okaeri procession on the 3rd. The processions of the three shrines are followed by 27 floats, and the crowds along the route cheer each time one spreads out sideways to fill the width of the street or raises its figures high into the air. The floats, on themes from myth and kabuki, are rebuilt every year by neighbourhood float groups, most of whose builders have day jobs and work on them at night after work. In the processions you can see the Hōryō Kagura of Ogami Shrine, whose dancers clack their lion masks’ jaws in unison, and the tiger dances, whose tigers roll on the ground and rise up on one another’s shoulders. Being bitten on the head by one of the tigers is said to bring good health. At the eve festival on 31 July and the closing festival on 4 August all the floats are lined up in the town centre with their scenery fully unfolded, so you can study them at leisure. On the middle day, 2 August, the floats alone parade at night, lit up, and during the day the Kagami-ryū mounted dakyū, a ball game said to have been started by a lord of the Hachinohe domain in 1827, is dedicated at the riding ground of Chōjasan Shinra Shrine. Mounted riders in red and white teams scoop up a ball with long-handled sticks and throw it into a goal, and this form of the game is said to survive in Japan only with the Imperial Household Agency, in Yamagata Prefecture and in Hachinohe.

How to watch

In 2026 the organising committee asked spectators not to save places along the route by leaving tape, sheets or bags unattended for long periods. Offering boxes travel with the shrine processions, and according to a local writer, a small gift envelope with some money in it is a perfectly good way to make an offering.

If you go

The festival fills the town centre around Hachinohe City Hall; the nearest station is Hon-Hachinohe on the JR Hachinohe Line, about ten minutes from the shinkansen stop at Hachinohe Station. To see the floats fully unfolded, the organisers recommend the paid spectator seats or the main streets such as Nijūsannichi-machi, Jūsannichi-machi and Mikka-machi; the back streets are narrow and the floats cannot always open out there. Paid seats are set up for the three procession days, 1 to 3 August; in 2026 general sales began in June and they sold out. In 2026 the Otōri and Okaeri processions ran from 3 to 7 p.m., and the night parade on the middle day and the eve and closing displays from 6 to 9 p.m. In 2026 paid temporary parking was provided in Nagane Park.

Where

Central Hachinohe

Hachinohe, Aomori

Open in maps

Sources

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