Gion Festival Blogs

Gion Festival fans around the world are wondering: will there be a Gion Matsuri 2022? What kind of shape will it take? We won’t know until the Gion Matsuri Yamaboko

The Yasaka Jinja is usually buzzing with visitors during the Gion Festival, but not in 2021. Image courtesy Jorie Johnson. No doubt the Gion Festival community and Kyoto authorities felt

Though the Gion Festival floats processions have been canceled in 2021 for the second year in a row due to covid, Gion Festival Yamaboko Floats Association officials and Yasaka Shrine

Gion Matsuri 2021: festival-goers pay respects at the festival’s parent Yasaka Shrine. Are they praying for an end to covid, the Gion Festival’s original purpose? Image courtesy Jorie Johnson.

KYOTO––The 2021 Gion Festival will again be held on a much smaller scale than usual, same as 2020. Once more this is due to the covid virus and concerns about

Will there be a Gion Festival 2021? Gion Festival 2020 did take place, but because of coronavirus concerns it was held in a much smaller way than usual.

I’m excited to be in the final stretch of writing my guidebook to the Gion Festival in English. My plan was to launch it at the Gion Festival 2020, in

A major portion of the Gion Festival 2020 is canceled. On April 20 the Gion Festival Floats Association and Yasaka Shrine together announced that the Gion Festival processions on July

Like every year, there’s lots happening during the spectacular and enormous Gion Festival 2020. Alas, most events are little advertised, or marketed only in Japanese.

Shining as the best-known festival in Japan, the Gion Festival takes place every year over the whole month of July. It’s a testimony to the community spirit of downtown Kyotoites

With an 1150-year history, the Gion Matsuri or Gion Festival is working with an unusually long-term perspective. Seven generations sounds like a stepping stone by comparison!

Rapidly changing times notwithstanding, in an 1100+-year event like the Gion Festival, transformation can be radical. The year 2014 heralded the reinstitution of the Gion Festival’s annual processions to two