Arimatsu Shibori Festival Arimatsu shibori matsuri festival, is held in early June with 2006 being the 22th anniversary of the festivals origins. Many events are held along the old Tokaido (a road running from Tokyo to Kyoto) each year with tie-dyeing displays and the sale of traditional craft products produced in the neighborhoods along the road being but a taster. Floats are also exhibited to musical accompaniment and windup doll performances are enacted.

Ichinomiya Tanabata Star Festival The Ichinomiya Tanabata Star Festival started in 1956 and has now become the largest summer festival the city plays host to. It boasts streets lined with gorgeous decorations and is praised as one of the three major tanabata festivals in Japan, the others being in Sendai and Hiratsuka. Over 1.3 million people attend the festival every year. The festival is held for four days near the end of July with the final day of the festival being the last Sunday of the month.

Nagoya Matsuri Festival Nagoya, with its 2 million strong population holds the Nagoya matsuri each autumn. The Nagoya matsuri is the biggest festival held in Nagoya during autumn and its main attraction is a parade in which the three proud heroes of Nagoya, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu march at the head of 700 retainers. Oda Nobunaga heads the parade and is celebrated as both a warlord from the then Owari area and also as the man who laid the foundations necessary to unify the nation.

Nagaragawa Ukai (Nagaragawa Cormorant Fishing) Nagaragawa River Nagaragawa Ukai is an ancient method of fishing for Japanese trout using tamed cormorants and has been ongoing in some areas for 1300 years. Fishing masters and their cormorants give performances of ukai during the warmer months which are made all the more dramatic by being surrounded by blazing fish fires in the darkness against a backdrop of Mt. Kinkazan with Gifu Castle sat atop the peak. The ukai show takes place every night from May 11 to October 15 with exceptions being the absences following a heavy rainfall, or, on the night of the harvest moon.

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