Como Park Obon Festival

Overview

We’re back! NEW in 2022 we will be selling ONLY ADVANCED TICKETS. More information to come. You will not be able to pay cash at the gate. If you arrive without your advanced ticket, we will have QR codes at the gate that will lead you through the ticketing purchase process. You will need a credit card.

Bonsai, martial arts, singing, dancing, drumming, delicious food and other aspects of Japanese culture, will be featured at the annual Como Park Japanese Obon Festival, a family-friendly event, reminiscent of Japan’s annual Obon holiday, on Sunday, August 21, 2022 on the grounds of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park from 3:00pm – 9:00pm.

The Obon Festival encompasses Japanese tradition—through music, dance, crafts, martial arts and lanterns. Entertainment in the Charlotte Partridge Ordway Japanese Garden and on the main stage will include several taiko drumming groups, koto (Japanese zither), shakuhachis (bamboo flutes), traditional and contemporary dance and singing. Martial arts, Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), origami demonstrations and a host of other cultural exhibits and demonstrations will line several paths through the grounds. Japanese food and dozens of culturally-related items will be for sale.

The day will culminate at dusk with the main event—the lantern lighting. Six stone lanterns and floating (on the water, not in the air) paper lanterns throughout the Japanese garden pond and the Frog Pond will create a vision of peacefulness and harmony to commemorate the dead.