Sendai Tanabata

Name: Sendai Tanabata
Start: 2025-08-05
End: 2025-08-07
Location: Sendai

A Dream Festival of Wishes and Color Weaving Across the Summer Sky

2025/08/05 - 2025/08/07

Every August, the city of Sendai is enveloped in color and hope during the Sendai Tanabata Festival. For three days, thousands of vibrant streamers and delicate paper decorations sway in the breeze along shopping arcades and main streets, carrying the wishes of visitors skyward into the summer air. This festival, woven from tradition, art, and community spirit, is one of Japan’s most beautiful summer spectacles.

Held annually from August 6th to 8th, the Sendai Tanabata Festival is the city’s largest event, attracting over two million visitors from both Japan and abroad. Whether you love Japanese culture, want to create summer memories with family, or simply want to feel the true excitement of a Japanese festival, these three dreamlike days will delight all your senses.

Main Attractions

Tanabata Decorations

The stars of the festival are the gigantic streamers—some reaching up to 10 meters long—along with origami cranes, paper kimono, and other intricate Tanabata ornaments. Carefully handmade by local shops and schools, these decorations fill the arcades and streets, shining in the sunlight by day and glowing under lanterns by night. The sound of rustling paper, the gentle sway of streamers, and the world of vivid colors make you feel as if you’re walking through a dream.

Key Events

The festival begins with a fireworks display on the evening of August 5th. During the festival, you’ll find stage performances, traditional dances, Tanabata craft workshops, and spaces to write your wishes on tanzaku (colorful strips of paper). The city is alive from morning to night with yukata-clad crowds, parades, laughter, and festival music echoing through the streets.

Costumes and Decorations

Many visitors wear colorful yukata, adding to the summery vibrance alongside the streamers. Each of the seven main decorations—streamers, cranes, paper kimono, purses, nets, and more—holds a special wish, such as longevity, prosperity, or good health.

Traditional Food & Drink

Festival stalls offer Sendai specialties like gyutan (grilled beef tongue), zunda mochi (sweet edamame rice cakes), sasakamaboko (bamboo leaf-shaped fish cakes), and shaved ice. The savory aroma of grilled beef tongue, the sweetness of zunda, and the refreshing chill of kakigori all heighten the joy of the summer festival.

Cultural and Historical Background

The Sendai Tanabata Festival began in the early 17th century, encouraged by Sendai’s feudal lord Date Masamune as a way to promote culture. Based on the legend of Orihime and Hikoboshi, the festival’s tradition of making decorations with wishes has continued every year. Now the largest Tanabata festival in Japan, it symbolizes local pride, recovery, and family bonds.

For the people of Sendai, Tanabata is a special summer milestone—an occasion to express gratitude to ancestors and family, and to send hopes for the future. It’s a festival where tradition and creativity are passed down from generation to generation.

Participant Voices

"I came with friends from Tokyo. The fireworks on the eve were amazing, and the people in the city were so kind. A local shopkeeper taught us the meaning of the origami cranes, and we enjoyed making decorations together. For me, as someone from Sendai, Tanabata is pure hope. After the earthquake, seeing everyone’s wishes in the decorations made me feel the unity and strength of our city."

Fun Facts

During the festival, about 3,000 Tanabata decorations are displayed throughout Sendai.
The largest streamers can be over 10 meters long.
Each of the seven main decorations—cranes, purses, nets, etc.—has its own special meaning.
Sendai Tanabata is often called “the most beautiful Tanabata in Japan.”