Hamamatsu Festival
downtown and Nakatajima
About
Hamamatsu Festival (浜松祭り, ''Hamamatsu Matsuri''), downtown and Nakatajima (shuttle buses to the kite-flying grounds leave from the south side of Act Tower). At Golden Week in early May. This 450-year-old festival is one of the most famous Golden Week festivals in Japan. In what is known as the Takoage Gassen, every neighborhood in the city and even some from other cities design and make their own kites to fly and to fight near at the festival grounds near Nakatajima Sand Dunes, with each kite representing a son born to a family of the neighborhood within the last year. The kite-fighting takes place on the third day of the 3-day festival and results entertainingly in downed kites in trees and on rooftops all over the neighborhood. In the Sunken Garden space on the north side of Act City, there is an international food court with many exotic stalls, and a stage for all kinds of music and cultural performances from around the world, including taiko drumming, local yaramaika music, Thai kickboxing, Brazilian batucada and samba dancing performances, jazz acts, jugglers, and traditional dances. There are also parades all over the city well into the night, in which children playing various instruments are carried in 70 large ornate parade floats. Everywhere there are groups marching and chanting to the sound of trumpets, and the sake flows freely. Free.
