List of indie festivals nationwide [2025–2026]

It’s a live circuit event hosted by radio station FM Sendai, organized in collaboration with the city of Sendai and local live music venues.

KANSAI LOVERS is an event that brings together artists with ties to the Kansai region. It will be held over two days again this year. From newcomers to star bands, you can catch live performances from Kansai’s most talked-about artists all at once.

It was started by an organizer who has lived in Matsumoto for many years and wanted to make the city he loves even better through music. Matsumoto hosts events like the classical Saito Kinen Festival and the summer festival Matsumoto Bonbon, but because there weren’t any events centered on youth-oriented popular music, the Ringo Music Festival focuses on popular music—including J-pop, as well as rock and hip-hop.

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.

Master Colosseum—aka Masukoro. The original festival of sound by bands, for bands! It’s an outdoor live event where the real thrill is the skirmishes between rival acts. It’s grown bigger every year, and we deliver a more robust lineup than ever.

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.

It’s a free outdoor rock festival held in Takatsuki, a city also famous for its jazz festival. It’s a large event that draws around ten thousand people every year, but the goal is 300,000! It’s an exciting event with the potential to grow that big.