Kanda Matsuri
神田祭
Early May 2027 – Mid May 2027
Tokyo
The dates for this event have not been confirmed yet. They are an estimate from the event’s own pattern, and this page is updated as soon as the organiser announces the real ones — check the official site for the latest. Last held 8–15 May 2025.
Kanda Matsuri is one of the three great festivals of Tokyo, and the one closest to the city’s commercial heart. Its full form, the hon-matsuri, is held only in odd-numbered years, alternating with Sanno Matsuri at Hie Shrine; 2027 is a festival year, and the shrine’s 2026 rites were the quiet off-year version.
The centrepiece is the Shinkosai on the Saturday: three ornate portable shrines, a mounted priesthood and hundreds of costumed attendants leave Kanda Myojin in the morning and spend the whole day circling the parish through Kanda, Nihonbashi, Otemachi and Akihabara, back at the shrine after dark. The Sunday belongs to the neighbourhoods, when around two hundred town mikoshi are carried into the shrine one after another for a blessing, the crowds thickest along the approach road from mid-morning.
The 2027 dates follow the festival’s fixed pattern — the procession on the Saturday and the mikoshi on the Sunday of the weekend before 15 May, the shrine’s own festival day, with the formal rites running through to it — and are to be confirmed by the shrine. In 2025 that meant a week of 8 to 15 May with the parades on the 10th and 11th. Kanda Myojin is a short walk from Ochanomizu or Akihabara stations; the streets close along the route, so plan to watch on foot.