14 to 16 May 2027
After the shrine's three great mikoshi (portable shrines) leave at seven on the Sunday morning, stand on Kaminarimon-dori, the wide avenue in front of the temple's main gate. You get a clear view of each one as it passes.
14 to 16 May 2027. Times are approximate and can change from year to year.
Musicians, dancers and geisha in old-style dress walk through Kaminarimon, the temple's outer gate, and up Nakamise, its shopping street, to the shrine. Cancelled if it rains.
A rice-planting dance in the shrine hall, then again at 3pm on the shrine's dance stage, which is cancelled if it rains.
Each neighbourhood's mikoshi gathers behind the main hall of Senso-ji temple, is blessed at the shrine in turn, then is carried back round its own streets.
On the dance stage in the shrine grounds.
The shrine's three great mikoshi are carried out of the grounds. Spectators are kept outside the temple gates.
Each takes a different part of the district and is carried round its streets all day.
The three mikoshi come back into the shrine after dark, and the festival ends.
About a hundred mikoshi, the portable shrines of Asakusa's 44 neighbourhoods, are carried to the shrine on the Saturday. The bearers shake them hard on purpose: the belief is that it wakes the god riding inside.
Asakusa Shrine stands right beside Senso-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple. Close to 1.8 million visitors come over the three days.
Come on the Friday if you want room: the 1pm procession is one of the calmer sights of the weekend. On Saturday, after the noon blessing, each neighbourhood carries its mikoshi back round its own streets, which are quieter places to watch one go by.
On Sunday you cannot get inside the temple gates for the morning start. Pick a spot on the route and let a mikoshi come to you, instead of chasing one through the lanes.
Many of the food stalls take cash only. Give the bearers room and follow the marshals; they move fast and do not stop, so step to the side of the street to take a photograph.
Stay in Asakusa itself, so you can walk to the shrine for the Sunday morning start, and book months ahead: rooms in the neighbourhood fill early for this weekend.
Where to base yourself, and what else is on
The Tokyo guide has Asakusa and the rest of the city.
Sixteen days of beer tents and brass bands on a Munich meadow. Get there on a weekday morning and a bench is yours without a booking.
Lima's purple month: a float carried through the old centre from dawn into the night on five days in October.