Kiryu Yagibushi Festival

桐生八木節まつり

A summer festival in the centre of Kiryū, Gunma. Crowds dance around towers set up in the streets to the Yagibushi folk song, sung to the beat of a barrel drum, gongs and flutes, and the portable shrine of the Kiryū Gion Festival, dating from the Edo period, is carried through town. Held every year for three days from the first Friday of August.

6–8 August 2027

278 days away

Every year, the 1st Friday of August, for 3 days

Future dates: 6 August 2027 · 4 August 2028 · 3 August 2029

Origin

Yagibushi is a folk song said to have grown out of the Bon dances of Yagi, a post town in what is now Ashikaga, Tochigi. In the early Taishō period a packhorse driver, Horigome Genta, refined the melody into the form sung today, and records carried it across Japan. At first it was accompanied only by a beaten barrel and a bamboo flute; drums and gongs were added later. The festival’s other pillar, the Kiryū Gion Festival, goes back in the records to 1656. In 1964 the city’s festivals were brought together as one, which has continued as today’s festival under the Yagibushi name.

What to look for

At night, rings of Yagibushi dancers spread out, one around another, from the towers set up along Honchō-dōri and in Suehirochō and Nishikichō. Singers belt out the song from the towers while the barrel drum, gongs and flutes drive the dancing on. On the third night, Nishikichō Ōdōri hosts a joint performance by past champions of the Yagibushi singing contest and a dance competition. By day the portable shrine of the Kiryū Gion Festival is carried through town, and the neighbourhood whose turn it is, once every six years, brings out its two-storey festival stage or hoko float, built between the Edo and Shōwa periods.

How to watch

Visitors are welcome to join the dancing. Kiryū City has published videos in Japanese and English that teach the steps, and learning them before you go makes it easier to step into a ring. Drones may not be flown over the festival area without national government permission. Take your rubbish home. Early-August nights are hot and humid; rest areas around the festival are open to everyone, though you are asked, as a rule, not to drink alcohol or eat inside them (drinking water is fine). No rain policy is published, but in 2026 rain cut short the children’s contest and briefly halted the third-day competitions.

If you go

The dancing takes place in the evening on all three days, from early evening until just before 10 p.m. Honchō-dōri and Suehiro-dōri are closed to traffic from midday until night during the festival (from the afternoon on the first day, Friday). The festival is a short walk from JR Kiryū Station; from Tokyo you can also take the Tōbu Railway to Shin-Kiryū Station, about 1 hour 40 minutes from Asakusa by the Ryōmō limited express. Free temporary car parks are provided for drivers. On the Friday, the All-Japan Yagibushi Contest, for singers and musicians, is held at the city’s cultural hall.

Where

Central Kiryū (Honchō-dōri, Suehiro-dōri and Nishikichō-dōri)

Kiryū, Gunma

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Sources

← All festivals