murmurTenno-sai Summer Festival at Utsunomiya Futarayama Shrine
Utsunomiya City · Utsunomiya Futarayama Shrine
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Tochigi Prefectural Tourism and Local Products Association (Tochigi Tabi Net) · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates confirmed with official sources
- 2026
- Jul 15–20, 2026 （Ended） July 18 from 18:00: parent-and-child mikoshi meeting / July 19 from 10:00: Suga mikoshi procession
- 2027
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- Usual timing
- Usually mid July
- How the date is set
- Every year, July 15 – July 20 The festival period runs from July 15 to 20; the days of the parent-and-child mikoshi meeting and the Suga mikoshi procession are announced each year
- Venue
- Utsunomiya Futarayama Shrine
- City
- Utsunomiya City, Tochigi
About
Suga Shrine, which stands within the grounds of Utsunomiya Futarayama Shrine, holds its annual festival in summer. Also known as the Suga Festival, it descends from the Gion Festival of Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto and is meant to drive off summer epidemics and other ills. Because the shrine crest looks like a cucumber cut crosswise, offering cucumbers is a well-known feature. Don't miss the meeting of parent and child mikoshi: after touring the city, each neighborhood's children's portable shrine faces the big parent mikoshi at the lower shrine, then charges up the shrine steps in one go amid lively shouts. The shrine's main mikoshi is carried through the upper and lower districts by bearers from the mikoshi preservation society.
Sources
- OfficialTochigi Prefectural Tourism and Local Products Association (Tochigi Tabi Net) www.tochigiji.or.jp
- OfficialUtsunomiya Futarayama Shrine futaarayamajinja.jp
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.