The Kasama Himatsuri Pottery Festival is an annual event held in Kasama City’s Art Forest Park. The weeklong event features booths and exhibits from over 250 craftspeople from across Japan. The vendors range from local artisans to well known historic kilns.

About Kasama Himatsuri Pottery Festival

Upon arriving at the main entrance to the Himatsuri Pottery Festival, we paid the ¥500/Person entrance fee and received wristbands. The entire festival was held at the large open grassy field at Kasama Art Parks Event Area. To protect the field from the heavy pedestrian traffic, interlocking hard plastic floor tiles lined the paths.

We snaked our way along the well organized paths, window shopping along the way. We made notes of the vendors we were interested in. After going through about two thirds of the booths we decided to break for lunch.

For lunch we made our way to the center. The layout of the festival was well designed. The central circle of booths was lined with high traffic food vendors. The center of the main circle had a large amount of tables, chairs, and benches. Some of which were under shade canopies. It was quite sunny, so the shady areas were under high demand. The amount of seating was sufficient, but they could have added more shaded seating to keep up with the high demand.

The Kasama Himatsuri Pottery Festival was a well established event and the amount and variety of foods available reflected that. We enjoyed some refreshing blood orange juice from Tully’s, as well half an okonomiyaki, and some karrage. We timed it well and were able to find a table with partial shade.

After lunch we finished our initial walkthrough of all the pottery vendors. We found a shady tree to stand under and brainstormed which of the vendors we wanted to revisit. We picked a couple of vendors and did a more thorough inspection of their pottery.

Our Favorite Vendor

The shop that we ended up supporting was based out of Hitachiota City. They were a small operation and did not have their own dedicated retail location. We really liked the white and orange color combination with the green accent glaze. The owner told us that the color combination was inspired by his Shiba Inu dog. We ended up getting one cup and one small plant pot that resembled a cup. There were some other vendors that we were interested in, however this was our favorite.

Here is some of the other pottery that we were interested in. We were trying to be more selective with our pottery choices as our collection has expanded quite a bit. We were pleasantly surprised with how affordable most of the pottery was.

After making our purchase we decided to head out.

Himatsuri Pottery Festival Event Information

Held from April 29th – May 5th

Location is the Kasama Art Park Event Square

Open 9:00 – 17:00

Nearby Points of Interest to Explore: Make Pottery at Kasama Craft Hills, Kasama Inari Shrine, Kasama Azalea Festival, and Kasama Roadside Station.

Unique Reasons to Go

• Largest Pottery Festival In Ibaraki Prefecture
• Largest Collection of Kasama-Yaki Vendors In Japan
• Some Vendors Do Not Have Their Own Stores & Only Sell at Pottery Festivals Like Himatsuri

Admission Fee & Hours

Admission to the Himatsuri Pottery Festival is ¥500/Person/Day.

Open 9:00 – 17:00

How To Access Himatsuri Pottery Festival

By Public Transportation

• From Tokyo (Ueno Station) take a JR Joban Line train bound for Katsuta getting off at Tomobe Station. *Least Expensive (2 hours 9 minutes, ¥1,980 one way per person) Note: JR Pass Compatible

• From Tokyo (Ueno Station) take a JR Hitachi & Tokiwa Limited Express train bound for Katsuta getting off at Tomobe Station. *Quickest (1 hour 7 minutes, ¥3,560 one way per person) Note: JR Pass Compatible

• From Tomobe Station take a special Kasama Sightseeing Bus getting off at the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art. It’s a 5 minute walk to Himatsuri Pottery Festival

By Car

• Tomobe IC (5.4 km South)
• Kasama-Nishi IC (10.5 km Southwest)

Himatsuri Pottery Festival Parking Lots

• Kasama Art Forest Park North Parking Lot (380 Spaces, 150 m from Main Entrance, ¥500 for cars, ¥1,000 for micro buses, & ¥1,500 for large buses), *Closest Parking Lot to Main Entrance

• Kasama Art Forest Park South Parking Lot (290 Spaces, 500 m from Main Entrance, ¥500 for cars, ¥1,000 for micro buses, & ¥1,500 for large buses).

• Kasama Art Forest Park East Parking Lot (380 Spaces, 100 m from East Entrance, ¥500 for cars, ¥1,000 for micro buses, & ¥1,500 for large buses). *Closest Parking Lot to East Entrance

• Kasama Art Forest Park West Parking Lot (120 Spaces, 600 m from Main Entrance, ¥500 for cars, ¥1,000 for micro buses, & ¥1,500 for large buses).

Here is the link for Kasama Himatsuri.