List of summer festivals in Eastern Japan held during summer vacation [2025–2026]: Rock festivals and outdoor music festivals

This year’s Tokyo Tango Festival is a special edition, welcoming new tango friends from across Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan. They, too, are fired up to perform alongside Japan’s leading top groups.

GFB stands for Goose Fresh Beat, and since Goose Fresh is a playful misspelling of “goosebumps,” it’s a music festival curated around the concept of a band that gives you goosebumps. It’s held on Mount Tsukuba, offering a festival where you can enjoy music surrounded by nature. The local love really shows, for example, in the special Ibaraki discount available on tickets.

JOIN ALIVE has been held every year since 2010 at Iwamizawa Park, which features an open-air music hall and the Hokkaido Greenland amusement park. You sometimes hear about music festivals held at amusement parks, but a unique feature of JOIN ALIVE is that you can actually enjoy the rides there as well. This means families can attend without younger children getting bored. Admission is also free for junior high school students and younger, so this event may inspire many children to fall in love with music.

A uniquely Hokkaido event that fuses live music with Hokkaido cuisine. Over the course of a month, live performances are held in the Sapporo Music Tent that appears in Odori Park and at multiple venues throughout Sapporo. The tent is set up like a restaurant, providing a relaxed space where you can sit down, enjoy a meal, and take in the live music.

This event, held since 2009 under the name KESEN ROCK, wasn’t started by band members or event promoters but by ordinary people. It’s said to be “an event entirely handmade without even knowing what a rock festival is,” and, D.

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It’s an event brimming with the spirit of Y.