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Hachinohe Sansha Taisai

— Three shrines' summer festival of giant floats

cultureOff the trail — and worth it

Hachinohe's three-shrine festival brings shrine processions and huge, mechanised floats through the city centre at the turn of July and August. The float event is a nationally designated folk property and part of a UNESCO-listed group of Japanese float festivals.

FromHachinohe Station
~8 min by train + walkJR Hachinohe Line, then walk
Get off atHon-Hachinohe Station (JR Hachinohe Line)
On foot
Hachinohe Sansha Taisai

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is a large festival that fills the city centre, so it is not a quiet one. The part people tend to skip is the two evenings at either end. On the eve and the after-festival the floats do not move. They line up, lit, in front of city hall and through the centre, each group playing its music, and you can walk right up to them.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Hachinohe City Hall plaza8-Forest / CC BY-SA 4.0

Ogami Shrinethe shrine where the festival began, and where the first procession day sets off
Hachinohe City Hall plazathe square where floats line up, lit, on the eve and the after-festival
Mikkamachi and Yokamachithe downtown streets the floats run through on procession days
Chojasan Shinra Shrinewhere dakyu, a ball game played on horseback, is held on the middle day

How to actually get there

Hachinohe Station → Hon-Hachinohe Station (JR Hachinohe Line, about 8 min).
Hon-Hachinohe Station → Ogami Shrine (on foot, heading south).
Ogami Shrine → Hachinohe City Hall plaza, where the floats stand on the eve and after-festival.
On into the downtown streets of Mikkamachi and Yokamachi for the processions.

JR Hachinohe Line to Hon-Hachinohe: The Shinkansen stops at Hachinohe Station, but the city centre lies around Hon-Hachinohe. Change to the JR Hachinohe Line for a ride of about 8 minutes. From Hon-Hachinohe, the centre is about a 10-minute walk.
Back to Hachinohe Station: Take the same line back to Hachinohe Station. When the floats finish, the crowd leaves the centre all at once, so check the Hachinohe Line timetable before the evening starts.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Three shrines — Ogami, Chojasan Shinra and Shinmei — process through central Hachinohe, and twenty-seven floats follow them. Each float is made fresh for the year by its own float group and shows a scene from myth, legend or kabuki. Mechanisms lift the figures upward and swing the sides out, and the largest open to about eight metres across. Drums, flutes and work songs ride along. Folk performers, among them tiger dancers and kagura troupes, walk with the processions. On the night runs the floats are lit, and the whole centre becomes the route.

How to enjoy it

The festival runs every year from 31 July to 4 August. In the 2026 programme, the eve and the after-festival ran from 18:00 to 21:00 with the floats standing in place. The procession days on the 1st and 3rd ran from 15:00 to about 19:00, and the 2nd was the night run, from 18:00 to 21:00. Come on the eve to see the floats up close, and on the 2nd to see them lit and moving.

Background & history

The festival dates its start to 1721. After poor harvests, Hachinohe's leading townspeople prayed at Horei Daimyojin, the shrine now called Ogami Shrine, for kinder weather and a good crop. When the harvest came good, they carried its deity by portable shrine to Chojasan in thanks. Two more shrines joined later, which gave the festival its name. The floats began with a single doll on board and grew into whole scenes. The state designated the float event an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 2004, and in 2016 UNESCO inscribed it among Japan's Yama, Hoko, Yatai float festivals.

Before you go

Cash: The processions use public streets. Paid seating is set up for the three procession days and sold in advance.
Good to know: Traffic in the centre is restricted while the floats run. The festival publishes the closures and car parks for each day, so check them before driving in.
Another way: City and Nanbu buses run from stand 1 at Hachinohe Station's east exit to the city-centre terminal at Mikkamachi and Yokamachi, at short intervals through the day.
After you get off: From Hon-Hachinohe Station, walk south. Ogami Shrine comes first, and the city hall plaza is a little beyond it.