Colorful Summer Has Arrived; More than 1 Mil. Visitors Expected to Visit Shonan Hiratsuka Tanabata Festival

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:13 JST, July 5, 2024

A crowd walks under colorful decorations over 10-meters-high for Hiratsuka’s Tanabata summer festival in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.

The Shonan Hiratsuka Tanabata Festival is one of the largest Tanabata star festivals in Japan, with around 100 gorgeous streamers hanging along the shopping street near JR Hiratsuka Station’s north exit. For its 72nd year, Shibusawa Eiichi, whose portrait is on the new ¥10,000 bill, and the Paris Olympics and Paralympics are also featured on the decorations.

The festival runs through Sunday with impressive nighttime illumination, and over one million people are expected to visit.