Tokamachi Snow Festival

Tokamachi Snow Festival 十日町雪祭り

Greg Goodmacher

What would your town do if it were flooded with snow every year?

Tokamachi, Niigata, boasts over seventy intricately carved, jaw-dropping snow sculptures of giant prone Buddhas, castles, famous Japanese anime and Disney characters, strange musicians, and other surreal, fantastic figures that residents create across their town.

Since 1950, the art-oriented citizens of Tokamachi, Niigata, have been morphing their annual snow inundation into a one-of-a-kind, town-wide festival, celebrating winter's beauty, combining traditional Japanese culture with contemporary culture, and providing unforgettable sensuous experiences for locals and tourists every February. Think food, art, music, dance, kimonos, fireworks, and more.

Tokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata PrefectureTokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata Prefecture

Tokamachi's celebration of winter deserves to be ranked among the best festivals in Japan. And many of the events are free of charge.

Although the city provides buses and tour companies offer guides and small vans, most visitors will enjoy ambling about town to gawk at the sculptures. By walking, you get to better feel the vibe of the festival and pause anytime to appreciate many unexpected surprises: live music, snowmen, ikebana on tables of snow, and more.

The center of action is at the main square in the town center. Long rows of food stalls feed more than three hundred thousand visitors with local and international food over the course of the three-day festival.

One stall was simmering beef and vegetable stew in a two-meter-wide frying pan. Others stalls were hawking typical Japanese festival foods such as miso soup, taiyaki, yakitori, fried chicken. Foreign dishes, including American style caramel popcorn and Middle Eastern lamb shawarma, were also for sale. Here and there, volunteers handed out free cups of nonalcoholic amazake, a refreshing hot drink made from fermented rice.

Tokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata PrefectureTokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata Prefecture

Local freshwater fish are a must eat and drink. Charbroiled river fish are placed in cups of heated hot sake. The fish imparts a charcoal and fishy flavor to the sake. Char from nearby rivers are salted, skewered, and arranged in circles around a heating element. Eating the whole crunchy, salty fish while it steams in the chilly air is a Japanese winter country experience.

Free hot matcha tea is served in a tea garden also sculpted from snow. The experience is worth waiting in line for. After passing through a snow tunnel into a secluded pavilion of white snow, young ladies wearing colorful, elegant kimono appear, carrying bowls of tea and trays of sweets to guests seated on snow benches.

Meanwhile masters of the tea ceremony demonstrate the graceful movements of the traditional tea ceremony in an open tea room in front of the seated guests. The pavilion is surrounded by five-meter-high walls of solid snow, Except for the quiet whispers of tea drinkers and the occasional sound of slurping, there is a shared silence and appreciation of the occasion.

However, just outside and across from the walled-in tea pavilion, children and kids at heart joyfully spin and loudly shriek while sliding down an icy hill on the inflated inner tubes of truck tires.

As evening approaches, most people start crossing town on foot (cars are not allowed) toward the main event, known as the Snow Carnival, which is held in a massive stage built, again, entirely of snow.

Tokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata Prefecture

Creating the stage takes many dozens of workers, top-quality-snow-shaping skills, and tons and tons of snow delivered by massive trucks. According to Tokamachi Festival organizers, in 1981 the snow stage was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest structure made from only snow. This year's stage was about fifty meters long and as tall as a three-story building. Snow camellia flowers, larger than people, decorated the front of the intricate Disney castle like front of the stage.

The three kimono queens of Tokamachi and other models wearing kimonos descended gracefully down the ice staircase and swayed across the stage without slipping or appearing cold in the subzero temperature.

Former AKB48 star, Tomomi Gitano, danced and sang her latest J-pop hits, followed by Japanese comedian and singer, Chieko Mizutani; bilingual singer and violinist Sarah Alainn from Australia; and the internationally famous duo known as Puffy.

As they all sang and danced, various exciting colors and designs were projected onto the white stage. Meanwhile, the audience was swaying, dancing or just standing on snow, watching the show through their breaths that turned steamy in the cold.

Tomomi Itano, Tokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata Prefecture

The finale of the festival is the lighting of two thousand fireworks behind the immense snow stage. This year, Sarah Alaiin singing Disney's "Let it Go" heralded the concluding pyrotechnic display.

Explosions ripped through the air from behind the stage; powerful fireworks shot like an ascending vertical river of color towards the stars. The sky became a canvas of mushroom-shaped multicolored explosions. The sounds vibrated through the town. It was a spectacular, sensual ending to a wonderful festival of shared art, food, fireworks, kimonos, snow, and more.

Although, this year's festival (2016) has already ended, you can attend the next one, or, better yet, come to Tokamachi in another season to enjoy its other attractions: terraced rice paddies, beautiful forests, abundant hot springs, Kiyotsu Gorge, and the world famous Echigo-Tsumari Art Field.

Getting There

Tokamachi City is in the southeast of Niigata Prefecture. Buses and trains from Tokyo head to and from Tokamachi daily. Take a shinkansen (80 minutes) from Tokyo Station to Echigo Yuzawa Station and then change to a Snow Rabbit train on the JR Iiyama Line to Tokamachi (26 minutes).

You can also fly to Niigata city from various Japanese cities and then take a train to Tokamachi after changing at Echigo Yuzawa Station.

Japan Snow Festivals

Koide Snowball Festival
Sapporo Snow Festival
Wakuwaku Winter Festival

Tokamachi Snow Festival, Niigata Prefecture

Accommodation in Niigata

Guide Books on Japan