When: Late July Dates: 22 July - 23 July 2017. 23 July - 24 July 2016 City: Hita Website: Hita City Gion Website (Japanese), Oita Events (English) Description: The Hita Gion festival has over 300 years of history. The aim of the festival is to invoke health and safety from natural disasters. Ornamental parade floats are carried through town. During the night procession these floats are lit by lanterns.
Gion(First Sunday after July 20) About 8 huge wooden floats (up to 12m high) from different areas of the city are pushed around the streets by volunteers. They are extravagantly decorated, all including a large number of lanterns, a true sight to behold! On the evening of the Thursday beforehand, they are put on display in front of the station, there is also some festival food to enjoy. Each float has a person sitting at the top as it is pushed around. Some of the streets put out large buckets of water which are thrown on the volunteers as they pass to keep them cool.