Atsuta Festival (Shobu-sai)
熱田まつり（尚武祭）
5 June 2027
Nagoya, Aichi
These dates repeat every year, so they are what to expect in 2027 rather than dates the organiser has announced yet — this page is updated as soon as it confirms them. Last held 5 June 2026.
The Atsuta Festival is the biggest day of the year at Atsuta Jingu, one of Japan's most venerable shrines and the keeper, by tradition, of the sacred sword of the imperial regalia. It falls on 5 June every year, whatever the weekday, and Nagoya treats it as the start of summer: the shrine grounds fill with food stalls, martial-arts demonstrations and displays of local performing arts through the day, and the surrounding streets take on the feel of a summer fair.
Dusk is when it comes alive. The makiwara, tall towers hung with paper lanterns, stand at the shrine's gates and are lit as the light fades, and their glow over the cedar groves is the festival's defining sight. Then, from about 19:40 to 20:30, roughly a thousand fireworks shells are launched from the nearby Atsuta Shinden park, watched from the shrine grounds and the streets around it.
The shrine is a few minutes' walk from Jingu-mae Station on the Meitetsu line and Atsuta Station on JR, well inside the city. Arrive in the late afternoon so you have time to see the lanterns before the fireworks, and expect a local rather than tourist crowd. It is a single-evening event and there are no floats or processions; the appeal lies in the lanterns, the fireworks and the sense of a whole city marking a turn in the season.