Farmers to tourists: Gifu’s rural festivals court new crowds to survive

Putting on a matsuri isn’t easy. And if there’s one thing that traditional Japanese festivals require, it’s scores of young people — a resource sorely in decline in the Japanese countryside.

“A lack of people is the most important problem we’re facing,” says Ryohei Teraji, chairperson of the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Preservation Association, one of the groups behind the Takayama Festival held in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture. “No matter what, we’ll have no choice but to reduce the scale of our festival.”

“We were always a small village,” says Masaru Kose, a representative of the onsen (hot spring) inn Katsuragi no Sato located in northwest Gifu and one of the organizers of Fukuji Onsen Summer Festival. “The dancers for our henbetei (lion dance) are inevitably getting older. It’s becoming incredibly difficult to pass on our traditions to the next generation.”

Some of the greatest cultural resources of Gifu’s mountain haven of Hida-Takayama are harvest festivals. While the stunning floats of the Takayama Festival (often considered one of Japan’s most visually breathtaking matsuri) comprise the region’s marquee event, much smaller and completely unique festivals take place within communities of just a few hundred people.

The Fukuji Onsen Summer Festival in northwest Gifu Prefecture includes a “henbetei” (lion dance) performance. | KATSURAGI NO SATO

Despite their idyllic rural settings with heaping doses of nature and culture, Hida-Takayama’s festivals are trying to forge futures in an aging and depopulating Gifu countryside.

Festivals at 1,000 meters

The legend goes: Six hundred years ago, legendary samurai warlord Takeda Shingen led his army to invade modern-day Gifu by crossing the 2,455-meter Mount Yake, the most active volcano in the Northern Japanese Alps.

During the climb, sulfuric gases hampered Takeda’s army to the point of exhaustion, putting the entire invasion in jeopardy. Then, an old, white monkey appeared. It led them to a hot spring, which the soldiers eagerly entered and soon recovered their strength. As rumors of this recuperative hot spring spread, people from all over came to visit its healing waters — soon known as Hirayu Onsen, the high-altitude gateway to Japan’s mountain paradise of Kamikochi.

The east of Takayama is rife with historic hot springs. There are five onsen villages in total, each with their own unique water compositions, traditions and festivals. Ryoma Fujie, a local guide and owner of the nearby Raicho Hot Springs Inn that straddles the border between Gifu and Nagano prefectures, explains that onsen are deeply embedded into the culture of the region, linking agriculture with a 1,000-year-old hospitality industry.

“Every year, after the fall harvest, many farmers from the Takayama area would come up to these hot springs to rest and restore themselves at the beginning of winter,” Fujie says. “It’s a thriving agricultural region where humans and nature have long coexisted.”

The same hot spring villages once frequented by farmers celebrating successful harvests now welcome tourists as a matter of necessity. | TAKAYAMA CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION

Agriculture is the key word that explains the region’s festival culture. Hida-Takayama is known for its agricultural festivals usually held in autumn. But when tourism began to replace traditional industries in the 1970s and ’80s, villages decided to make their festivals key attractions for visitors, even putting on duplicate festivals in the high season during summer.

Take the tiny village of Fukuji Onsen, known for its local morning market and collection of ancient sea fossils. Its annual festival held in August peaks with a henbetei — a National Treasure-designated lion dance performance that uses two performers in traditional costume to mimic the dynamic ferocity of a living beast. The original version of the festival takes place in May, but for the last 50 years, organizers have put on a second iteration in August to perform for tourists both domestic and international.

The atmosphere of a completely local festival, where the organizers are neighbors who also welcome outsiders, is a rare and heartwarming experience. Alluring lanterns light up as smoke drifts above yakitori grills and a lion dance like few others in Japan.

However, an aging population and overall demographic decline have seriously impacted the region. Takayama City’s population has been dropping since the mid-2000s, a trend that has continued into the 2020s. Neighboring Hida is experiencing even more severe depopulation, with a decline of over 25% since 2000. Meanwhile, the proportion of elderly residents is now over one-third of the population — all figures that are more severe in smaller villages compared to the urban Takayama center.

Residents of the small village of Fukuji Onsen realize that while they must rely on outside help and attention to sustain their traditions, its for the benefit of their own communities. | KATSURAGI NO SATO

Still, tourism is providing some economic benefits. Foreign overnight visitors to Takayama have more than doubled since 2015, surpassing 700,000 in 2024.

The same hot spring villages once frequented by farmers now welcome tourists. And the prime representative is the Takayama Festival.

“We practice and prepare all year for just a few days,” Teraji says, referring to the autumn Takayama Festival. “It’s more than a source of prosperity for the city. It’s something that encourages Takayama residents to work hard and take pride in ourselves and this place.”

Takayama’s spring and fall festivals, held from April 14 to 15 and Oct. 9 to 10, respectively, are agricultural festivals famed for their yatai (festival floats) of up to 8 meters tall with elaborate decorations. During these two-day celebrations, multiple float parades ring the city, puppet shows entertain crowds and the traditional warehouses of older districts are draped in festive splendor.

It’s rare to find so many unique traditional festivals, all welcoming to tourists, packed into a single municipality: Hida’s Kitsunebi Festival in late September; Hirayu Onsen’s Yubana Festival in May and Saruman Festival in August; Shin-Hirayu Onsen’s Ideyu Festival in August and Soba Festival in November; Shirakawa Village’s Doburoku Festival in early October, plus nearly a dozen more. These matsuri include rooster dances, lion dances, taiko drum performances and torchlit processions, all united thematically by the region’s distinct Hida ema (votive tablet). Instead of the usual wooden plaques bearing images of horses found in other parts of Japan, these good-luck amulets take the form of hand-painted, colorful posters of horses hung proudly in local homes and shops.

Organizers of the Fukuji Onsen Summer Festival are now recording “henbetei” (lion dance) practices and performances in case they're unable to put the event on in the future. | KATSURAGI NO SATO

“There are many lion dances across Japan, but ours brings the lion to life like few others,” Kose says. “Ours puts the lion on four legs with two dancers, rather than standing upright like a person, and the result is a whole different level of dynamism and naturalism.”

A new future

However, even the largest and most prosperous of Hida-Takayama’s matsuri worry about the future. Takayama Festival’s yatai are owned and operated by private groups that have traditionally passed on the privilege to haul the large floats to other individuals within their families or the local community.

With aging and depopulation, the intimate nature of the yatai groups is becoming less and less feasible.

“Most of the 25 yatai between the spring and fall festivals are operated by just eight to 15 households, and one of them by just four,” Teraji says. “We’re seeing festivals at smaller shrines all over our area shrink drastically.”

Although the tourism industry has fueled the region, it has also brought corporations from around Japan and overseas that have launched new hospitality businesses.

“In most cases, these newcomers don’t contribute to traditional culture, as they simply view the area as a way to make money,” explains Fujie.

However, locals also believe that tourism — and more importantly, the human connectivity it can inspire — can help preserve a future for their festivals. For example, in the past five years, yatai groups in Takayama have received assistance from volunteer groups from Gunma and Mie prefectures to organize the procession.

“The festival couldn’t have gone on without them,” Teraji says. “We’re recommending that groups accept outside volunteers. Although not all the groups approve, more and more of them are seeing this as a realistic path forward.”

In the past several years, residents of Gunma and Mie prefectures have participated in the Takayama Festival as a way of alleviating manpower shortages among Gifu locals. | TAKAYAMA CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION

Connectivity also comes from new and slower types of tourism. Fujie helped to create the Shinpi Trail, a 117-kilometer walking trail from Matsumoto to Takayama, newly launched in 2025. It traverses the Japanese Alps and crosses dozens of festivals in its path. A well-timed traverse in August or October allows a hiker to encounter multiple unique festivals in a week’s journey.

“We’re working to create opportunities for hikers to connect with communities along the trail, including participating in local events,” he says.

For small villages without ample resources like Fukuji Onsen, the best they can do is focus on preserving the traditions of the present.

“We are taking videos of lion dance practices and performances, as we are anticipating the dance may need to stop for certain years and then restart,” Kose explains.

While communities like Fukuji Onsen might be focusing on boosting tourism for the moment, the ultimate goal is to sustain a livelihood and ensure a future.

“We need to flourish as a tourist destination, making enough money to build a place where young people choose to remain and create the next generation,” Kose says. “In the end, we’re not doing the festival just for tourists. It’s for us — for our town.”