The Wako Citizens’ Festival is an autumn festival, held annually in November. The main festival is normally on for two days around the middle of November, with smaller events in the lead up to it. In 2022 it was only on for one day due to the pandemic, but in 2023 it is on for eight days with one main day – the last day. This year is the same – 8 days with one main day…
Wako Citizen’s Festival
The festival is held around the Wako City offices. The objective of the festival when it was first set up was to encourage Wako Citizens to increase their awareness of global understanding and multicultural coexistence. Source: was an English web page on Wako City website, which has been lost with the city’s website update. Ironically, despite the objective of the festival, there is very little information in English online. All I could find was two outdated articles from the English web pages of the city (which I had linked, but their links now go to an error page as the website has gone through a renewal during the pandemic).
In 2024 the festival is on from Saturday November 9th to Sunday November 17th. The last day, Sunday the 17th, is the ‘main day’ according to the official website. But they will also have a festival on Saturday the 11th from 4 pm to 8 pm around the south entrance of Wakoshi station. Before the pandemic the Saturday festival had Japanese dance and music performances. Also, there were mikoshi, portable shrine, processions. Before the pandemic there were festival stalls and stage performances on both days. Usually the city mascot visited on the Sunday.
Sun Azalea Hall
Unfortunately, since the pandemic they don’t share information for the festival online, just the dates. The information is shared on the city’s public relations magazine. Please note, apart from the events on the Sunday, most of these require you register in advance. I’ll outline the key events at Sun Azalea Hall (as part of the festival):
- Live performances on Saturday November 9th in the main hall from 10.30 am to 3 pm.
- Citizen’s concert and Karaoke competition on Sunday November 10th. The concert is in the small hall and is on from 1.30 to 3.30 pm. The karaoke competition is in the big hall from 11 am to 4.30 pm.
- Citizens concert on Saturday November 16th from 1 pm to 3 pm in the main hall.
- Various dance performances and a competition from 10 am to 3 pm on Sunday November 17th.
Information
Event: Wako Citizen’s Festival 和光市民祭り
Dates: Saturday November 9th to Sunday November 17th 2024 – the main day is Sunday November 17th.
Time: Various, some outlined above.
Cost: there is no admission fee
Venue: Wakoshi Station and in and around Wako City Hall, 1-5 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0192. View on Google Maps.
Access
The Wako festival can be accessed from Tobu Tojo and Metro line’s Wako Station. The main venue is around city hall, which is about a 15 minute walk from the station. There is no car parking available for this festival and they strongly discourage people from coming by car.
A fabulous festival.
I’m so glad to see festivals return this year. 🙂