Each year at either the end of May or start of June there is a firefly festival in the Konan area of Kumagaya. The Konan area is perhaps best known for its stunning wisteria, which blooms around Golden Week. However, the wisteria is at a blueberry farm which opens to the public for picking in June too. On the years that the firefly festival is on in June, you can potentially combine a trip to the blueberry farm, by day, with firefly viewing by night!
Konan Firefly Festival
The 18th annual Konan (Kounan) Firefly festival will take place on Saturday June 6th on the grounds of Kumagaya Culture Hall Pipia. However, if there is heavy rain, the event will be cancelled. The event starts at 6.30 pm and runs until about 9.30 pm. Usually the fireflies start to fly around 8 pm. There are some rules that you must adhere to during this event. For one; you need to be quiet as possible. Also, you cannot use a torch or any sort of light (including smart phone light / flash) when viewing the fireflies. It goes without saying you also can’t touch or try to capture them and that you shouldn’t litter. Please read all the rules on the poster above (clicking it will enlarge it) before attending the event.
Often firefly events in Saitama are for small groups of people who book in advance to do a tour. However, this festival (and the firefly event at the Terasaka terraced rice fields) have no limit on numbers. With the result before the pandemic the festival in Kumagaya attracted about 6,000 people. The festival is called Konan (Kounan) after the area. Konan is famous for the amount of genji fireflies native to the area. Three hundred candle lit lanterns that were made by local school children light the main road from the festival tents to the main area for the firefly viewing. They will be lit from 6.30 pm. There are two kamishibai performances, firefly stories naturally, before that at 5.30 and 6 pm!
Later in the summer there are even more places with firefly events, such as the Kitamoto firefly event (easily commutable from Tokyo) and the aforementioned Terasaka Rice fields firefly and candle night.
Information
Event: Konan Firefly Festival 2026 第18回こうなんホタル祭り
Date: Saturday June 6th 2026, but it will be cancelled, with no back up date, if its raining.
Time: from 6.30 pm to 9.30 pm, but the kamishibai is from 5.30 pm. You need to register an interest early, as they will limit viewing to 30 people each time.
Cost: there is no admission fee.
Venue: the parking lot of Kumagaya Culture Hall Pipia 325-1 Sendai, Kumagaya, Saitama 360-0107. View on Google Maps.
Access
The nearest train station on foot is Hirose Yacho No Mori station on the Chichibu Railway line. It takes about 50 minutes. But you can take a bus from Kumagaya Station, bound for Ogawamachi station, to Onuma Park. It is about a 20 minute ride. From the park it is about a ten minute walk. Please note that buses maybe limited. Please research the times to make sure you can still get a bus back at your planned time of departure.
There is parking for 160 cars at Pipia, but it fills up pretty fast. As you can see in the flyer above, there are other nearby parking lots too. They’ve actually doubled the amount of parking available in recent years. There is now close to 700 parking spaces available across multiple parking lots. However, it doesn’t suffice, so where possible its best to come by public transport.
sounds a little different! Dont know how you keep up with all these events!