murmurYosakoi Matsuri
Kochi City · Dance venues across Kochi City (main venue: Otesuji)
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Yosakoi Festival Promotion Association · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates confirmed with official sources
- 2026
- Aug 9–12, 2026 （Ended）
- 2027
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- Usual timing
- Usually early August
- How the date is set
- Every year, August 9 – August 12 Eve festival on the 9th, main dancing on the 10th and 11th, finale and national contest on the 12th
- Venue
- Dance venues across Kochi City (main venue: Otesuji)
- City
- Kochi City, Kochi
About
This four-day dance festival is Kochi's summer in a nutshell: around 200 teams and some 18,000 dancers work their way through competition and performance venues across the city, clacking naruko clappers as they go. There are just two rules. Dancers must move forward holding naruko, and each team's song must include a snippet of the original Yosakoi Naruko Odori. Everything else is open, so costumes, music and choreography differ wildly from team to team, each led by a decorated sound truck that pumps out its music. The festival began in 1954, organized mainly by the Kochi Chamber of Commerce and Industry to beat the postwar slump, wish citizens good health and prosperity and give the shopping streets a lift. On the eve-festival day, fireworks go up over the Kagami River.
Sources
- OfficialYosakoi Festival Promotion Association www.cciweb.or.jp
- OfficialYosakoi Festival Promotion Association www.cciweb.or.jp
- ReferenceYOSAKOI.COM（個人のサイト） www.yosakoi.com
Last checked: Oct 10, 2026. Event information is based on official announcements, but changes may not always be reflected here. Please check each official website for accurate details.
Other events this month
On the day, see what locals are murmuring on the murmur map
murmur is an app that shows short, anonymous posts on a map, right where they were written. On festival day, open the map around the venue and see what people nearby are saying.