Information for the annual Ogose Festival, a summer festival held annually in Ogose Town, in the Iruma District of Saitama Prefecture, Japan.
It may seem early to be posting about summer festivals, but summer is only three weeks away! The last time the Ogose festival was on was in 2019. It was cancelled three years in a row due to the pandemic. There are dozens of festivals scheduled for the first time in four years, so I have a LOT of posts to republish! (I temporarily removed dozens of event posts during the pandemic).
>>There are also fireworks in Ogose this coming Saturday, May 13th<<
The Ogose Festival
The Ogose festival is a two day festival held each year in the middle of summer – in the month of July. Each year festival floats are pulled around the town playing Japanese traditional / local folk music. There are six floats from six districts in the area of Ogose. The Ogose festival is a perfect example of a local Japanese summer festival. Despite the grandeur of the floats, the festival is not that well known. Ogose town is quite insular and the majority of attendees at this festival are local. But more than that, there are soooooo many festivals during summer, that it is really only the very large (or traditional / unique / elaborate) festivals that become famous.
Throughout the festival period there are traditional festival stalls selling festival food and offering festival games. The festival floats perform hikkawase when they encounter each other as they travel around the town. Hikkawase is like a battle between the floats, the first of the performers to make a mistake loses that battle for their district’s float! The festival culminates with a firework display on the Sunday night at around 7 pm. It isn’t a large display, but it lasts for about half an hour.
Closer to the time they will release a schedule, with even more events on that weekend, as part of the festival. They only announced on April 25th that they will have the festival, so the poster is also not ready for this year.
Information
Event: Ogose Festival 越生祭り
Date: Saturday July 22nd and Sunday July 23rd 2023
Time: from 5 pm on the Saturday and from around 1 pm on the Sunday (subject to change)
Cost: free
Venue: around Tobu Ogose Line’s Ogose Station, 386 Ogose, 大字 Ogose, Iruma District, Saitama 350-0416. View on Google Maps.
Access
It is always recommended to attend festivals by train. Thankfully this festival is close to a station – Ogose station on the Tobu Ogose Line.
Official event page from where the featured photo (at the top of the post) was taken from.
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