Japanese music lovers enjoy a good festival just as much as the rest of us, and the highlight of every year is Japan’s summer festival season! Check out this quick guide to learn more about Japan’s three major summer music events.

① Fuji Rock Festival (Niigata)

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Fuji Rock is the largest outdoor music festival in Japan, and it’s been a reliable gathering place for music lovers in Japan since 1997. The very first Fuji Rock Festival was held at a ski resort near Mt. Fuji, which is where the festival’s name and logo come from, but in recent years the venue has changed to another ski resort in northwestern Japan. (They kept the cool name, though!) The festival routinely attracts over 100,000 visitors, who come together from all over the world to camp out, enjoy the lush green mountainside, and enjoy a lineup peppered with Japan’s hottest rock artists and supported by a selection of other popular artists pulled from the international music scene.

The 2024 festival is being headlined by rock icons like the Killers and Noel Gallagher of Oasis fame, with notable Japanese artists like Macaroni Empitsu and the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra also taking turns on the main stage. If you like the idea of rocking out to a varied musical selection in a peaceful green environment, check out the Fuji Rock Festival.

Fuji Rock Festival ’24 (フジロックフェスティバル ’24)
2024 Dates: July 26~28
Venue: Naeba Ski Resort (苗場スキー場), Niigata
Tickets: 16~22 y.o. Day Pass 18,000 yen | 23+ Day Pass 25,500 yen | Friday Night Ticket 16,000 yen | 3-Day Pass 30,000 yen
Official Website (en) | Ticket Sales

② Rock in Japan Festival (Chiba & Ibaraki, Outside Tokyo)

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Held spread out between two venues you might say are in the Tokyo suburbs, and stretched out over the course of four weekends and two months (for a total of ten days), this long and luxurious music festival has been around for twenty years, and it’s not going away any time soon. Rock in Japan is particularly popular among Japanese pop fans, and the 2024 lineup is packed full of the biggest j-pop artists of the year. Get tickets for the first weekend to see a truly spectacular list of big names: Saucy Dog, Nogizaka 46, Sambomaster, Yuuri, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Kessoku Band (of Bocchi the Rock anime fame), Vaundy, HYDE, and LiSA are just a fraction of the lineup. The following three-day weekend is equally impressive, featuring big names like Maximum the Hormone, Aimyon, Porno Graffiti, Creepy Nuts, Gen Hoshino, UVERworld, and MUCC. And this is just the first half of the festival, held in Chiba’s Soga Sports Park – the Ibaraki lineup is yet to be announced! Genres vary wildly, but the festival is all about Japanese music, and it’s the event of the year for j-pop lovers.

Rock in Japan Festival 2024 (ロックインジャパンフェス 2024)
2024 Dates: August 3~4, 10~12 / September 14~15, 21~23
Venue: Soga Sports Park (千葉市蘇我スポーツ公園), Chiba | Hitachi Seaside Park (国営ひたち海浜公園), Ibaraki
Tickets: Day Pass 15,000 yen | 2-Day Pass 28,000 yen | 3-Day Pass 39,000 yen | 4-Day Pass 47,000 yen | 5-Day Pass 53,000 yen
Official Website for Chiba | Official Website for Ibaraki

③ Summer Sonic (Tokyo & Osaka)

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Held simultaneously in both Tokyo (well technically just over the border in Chiba) and Osaka every year, Summer Sonic aims for a 50/50 split between Japanese and foreign artists, and the result is a truly eclectic lineup. Representing Japan in 2024 you have artists like GLAY, Gen Hoshino, Creepy Nuts, HYDE, and Orange Range. Non-Japanese artists include everyone from Christina Aguilera to Belle & Sebastian, plus plenty of other notable names like Jon Batiste, Tyla, and Hoobastank. The foreign lineup isn’t only limited to artists from the English-speaking world, either – one of the headliners is Italian rock group Maneskin, and Thailand’s most famous rock band Bodyslam is also making an appearance. The two-day festival generally splits the major headliners between Tokyo and Osaka on the first day and has them switch for the next, so you can see most of the big names above in either city, but the schedules aren’t 100% the same – take a good look at the official website to figure out where you want to buy your tickets.

Summer Sonic 2024 (サマーソニック2024)
2024 Dates: August 17~18
Venue: Zozo Marine Stadium (ZOZOマリンスタジアム), Chiba | Expo ’70 Commemorative Park (万博記念公園), Osaka
Tickets:
　　Tokyo (Chiba): Day Pass 19,000 yen | 2-Day Pass 36,000 | Platinum Ticket 33,000 yen
　　Osaka: Day Pass 16,500 yen | 2-Day Pass 32,000 yen | Platinum Ticket 28,000 yen
Official Website (en)

This Summer, Add Japan’s Biggest Music Festivals to Your Travel Plans!

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No matter what you do, a summer visit to Japan is going to be hot, so you might as well lean into it and feel the heat in a crowd of fellow music lovers! Fuji Rock, Rock in Japan, and Summer Sonic are three of the biggest Japanese events of the summer, but there’s a whole world of fun to be found if you expand your travel plans to include something outside of the usual scope – check the Japankuru event calendar for even more events throughout Japan!

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