[2025–2026] Recommended Music Festivals: A roundup of outdoor festivals and major rock festivals you should attend at least once

TREASURE05X is held every summer. Speaking of summer, it’s all about the beach—and festivals! Since Laguna Beach hosts a seaside summer festival, it’s the perfect event to soak up the season to the fullest. With the crowd’s energy, you’ll forget the heat as you lose yourself in the music, and enjoying the local food and drinks is another highlight. The lineup is packed with hot artists, especially from the Japanese rock scene, making it tough to choose which date to attend. If possible, you’ll want to go to all of them.

A wide variety of artists will perform live at nearly 40 venues set up throughout downtown Sendai. Just like choosing your favorite dishes in a bustling cafeteria where people gather, the event is held with the hope that you’ll discover and savor your very own music from the wealth of sounds from around the world spilling across the city. That’s the true charm of a jazz street.

Koyabu Sonic is hosted by Chihiro Koyabu, a hugely popular TV personality known for Yoshimoto Shinkigeki. The event will take place over three days using Halls 2 and 5 at Intex Osaka. In addition to performances by the Yoshimoto Shinkigekis band—formed by Yoshimoto comedians who are expanding their activities across the country—many comedian stages are also planned.

The Gunma Rock Festival, which was held for three years starting in 2011, has been reborn as “Yamabito Ongakusai.” The central driving force behind the event is G-FREAK FACTORY, and the title “Yamabito” (mountain folk) was chosen to evoke Gunma Prefecture’s mountains: Mt. Akagi, Mt. Haruna, and Mt. Myogi.

PEACE DAY is a music festival that proudly bears peace in its title. In addition to live music, it features a variety of events such as talk sessions and activities. It’s a wonderful event where you can not only have fun but also learn something new!

Now that diversity of values has become the norm, following the boom of large-scale music festivals, the new focus is on “live circuits,” in which multiple live music venues are rented out and concerts are held simultaneously across them. In this context, three of the nation’s premier circuit festivals—Osaka’s Mihoudai, Nagoya’s Dera Rock, and Fukuoka’s TENJIN ONTAQ—are joining forces in Tokyo to stage one of Japan’s largest live circuits.