Hamamatsu Festival

The Hamamatsu Festival, the largest festival event, is held annually from May 3rd to May 5th. The citizens of Hamamatsu City enthusiastically participate in this event every year. During the first week of May, the Great Sand Dune in Hamamatsu is transformed into an ancient battlefield. Knots of excited men and women huddle around devices like engines of war. They are uniformed in happy coats, and fly their colors above. Each group has its own drum and bugle corps, and the air is thick with rumble and blast.
Not far away, in the cool shadows of the Hamamatsu Festival Museum, the fallen of years past -- charred ends of kite strings -- rest next to plaques that illustrate techniques for capturing your opponent's string and burning through it with the heat of friction. The main event is the "Kite Battle" on the Nakatajima Sand Dunes, which heralds the arrival of summer to this city. Huge kites, from over 160 communities, fly magnificently in the sky high above.

The Hamamatsu Festival is a total, completely over helming experience: Intense kite flying the entire day and intense partying the entire night! And this goes on for three days!

Background History
Hamamatsu Festival held at the beginning May (Period: May 3 - May 5) each year, is well-known for Takoage Gassen, or the kite fight, and luxuriously decorated palace-like floats. The festival originated about 430 years ago, to celebrate the birth of the first son of the then lord, a large kite with his son's name was flown by the people, when the lord of Hamamatsu Castle celebrated the birth of his first son by flying kites. In the Meiji Era, the celebration of the birth of a first son by flying Hatsu Dako, or the first kite, became popular, and this tradition has survived in the form of Hamamatsu Festival. It is extremely exciting to see over 160 large kites flying in the sky to the sound of trumpets. Those who visit Hamamatsu at this time of the year can experience the city at its most exciting time.