Nozawa Fire Festival 2027: Date, the 2026 Timetable and Who Got In

Nagano Prefecture · Nozawa Onsen · 15 January

By Nobu · Sources checked 11 October 2026 · A researched guide, not a festival report · Verified against Nozawa-gumi’s festival pages, the Nozawa Onsen Mountain Resort Tourism Bureau’s 2026 notices, the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, Nozawa Onsen Kotsu’s Liner timetables, JR East’s Iiyama Station timetable and the official Japan Rail Pass site

The Nozawa Fire Festival, the Dosojin Matsuri, is held every year on 15 January, so in 2027 it falls on Friday 15 January. The 2026 programme put the fight over the wooden shrine at about 8:30 to 10 p.m. For 2026, entry to the festival ground was by ticket, and tickets went only to villagers and to guests staying in Nozawa Onsen. The 2027 rules had not been announced on 11 October 2026.

Jump to: What it is · 2027 date and the 2026 timetable · Tickets and rules · Where to stay · Getting there · The days around it · Combine with · FAQ

What happens at the Nozawa Fire Festival?

Dosojin are guardian gods of village borders and crossroads, also prayed to for good marriages, children and children’s growth. Nozawa-gumi, the village’s old self-governing association, is the festival’s organiser. It describes the event as a fire festival of the Little New Year (koshōgatsu) and says it was already held on a grand scale in the late Edo period. Nozawa-gumi and the village tourism bureau both write that it “is said to be one of Japan’s three great fire festivals”; that is their phrase, not an official ranking.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists 野沢温泉の道祖神祭り as a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, designated on 13 December 1993, with Nozawa-gumi as the preservation group.

The fire itself is brought from the Kōno family’s house at Terayu, where, the tourism bureau says, it is struck with flint and steel. I live in Fujiyoshida, which has its own fire festival in August. I have not been to Nozawa’s; everything here comes from the organisers’ and official pages.

2027 date and the 2026 timetable

The festival is fixed to the calendar date, not a weekend: the organisers list 13, 14 and 15 January “every year”. In 2027 that makes the procession day a Wednesday and the fire night a Friday. On 11 October 2026 neither Nozawa-gumi nor the tourism bureau had posted a 2027 programme, so the table gives the 2027 weekdays beside the times from the tourism bureau’s 2026 schedule. The bureau marks every time as approximate.

What follows the attack is described on Nozawa-gumi’s own page, which gives no programme year: after about an hour and a half of fighting, both sides seal the end with a ritual hand-clap and the shaden is set alight “after 10 p.m.”; it burns down “after 11 p.m.” and keeps burning into the next day. The schedule on its festival index says the first-lantern offering follows the adults’ attack, with no end time fixed.

When to look for the 2027 details: the entry notice for the 2025 festival was posted on 15 November 2024 and the one for 2026 on 19 November 2025, both on the tourism bureau’s site. If 2027 follows that pattern it would appear in mid to late November 2026, but no date has been announced. The 2026 notice said ticket details would follow from early December.

Tickets, where you stand and the rules

The festival ground, the Dosojin-ba, slopes gently down towards the shaden. In its notice for the 2025 festival the tourism bureau wrote that entry had been limited for two years to villagers and village guests, that about 4,800 people still came in, and that letting in more would be unsafe for a ground that size. Nozawa-gumi’s rules for the 2026 festival, dated 30 November 2025:

The pages I read on 11 October 2026 do not name viewing zones inside the ground, set an age limit for children, or describe cold-weather provisions. It is a night outdoors in mid-January in a heavy-snow village, and in the 2026 programme the lanterns arrived at 7:30 p.m. and the adults’ attack ended around 10 p.m.: dress for standing still in the snow for that long, with waterproof boots. The heavy-snow guide covers what to carry.

Where to stay for the festival

Under the 2026 rule, a stay inside Nozawa Onsen village was the only way for a visitor to get a ticket. The tourism bureau’s site has a web booking page and a form for asking the bureau to arrange a stay. Wherever you book, ask the property in writing how it will handle festival tickets for its guests on 15 January 2027, and book as soon as you have dates.

From 1 June 2026 the village charges an accommodation tax of 3.5% of the room-only rate per night; stays under ¥6,000 per person per night room-only are exempt. The village’s 13 public baths, the soto-yu, are open to anyone; they are kept by residents’ bath groups, and the bureau asks for a small donation in the offering box. If you have not used a Japanese public bath before, read the onsen etiquette guide first. Ōyu, the large wooden bathhouse in the middle of the village, is open 6:00–23:00 from December to March.

Getting to Nozawa Onsen

Train. The nearest station is Iiyama on the Hokuriku Shinkansen. On JR East’s October 2026 weekday timetable, 11 Hakutaka trains a day run from Tokyo to Iiyama, the first leaving Tokyo at 6:28 and the last at 20:12, taking 1 h 38 min to 1 h 57 min. The tourism bureau notes that no public transport runs to the village from the Iiyama Line’s Kamisakai or Togari-Nozawaonsen stations.

Bus. The Nozawa Onsen Liner, run by Nozawa Onsen Kotsu, runs all year from the Chikumagawa exit of Iiyama Station (stop 4) to the village’s Central Terminal in about 25 minutes, for ¥600 (children ¥300), no booking needed. Suica works for one person; buy tickets from the machine for two or more. On the timetable for 30 March to 30 November 2026 there are 10 buses a day each way: from Iiyama 8:45 to 21:20, from the village 6:30 to 19:35. Last winter’s timetable, 13 December 2025 to 30 March 2026, also had 21:20 as the last bus from Iiyama and 19:35 as the last from the village. The 2026–27 winter timetable was not on the operator’s page on 11 October 2026.

Not every train meets a bus, and the operator says so too. On the tables above, the last train from Tokyo, the 20:12 (Iiyama 22:00), arrives after the last posted Liner has left Iiyama at 21:20; on the October 2026 weekday train timetable the 19:04 from Tokyo (Iiyama 21:00) is the last departure that fits the posted 21:20 Liner; recheck both timetables for January 2027. Leaving the village after the fire is the other problem: on both posted timetables the last Liner out goes at 19:35, before the fire reaches the ground.

Japan Rail Pass. The official pass site says the pass covers all JR Shinkansen except Nozomi and Mizuho trains, and names the Hokuriku Shinkansen among the lines where Gran Class costs extra. So a standard pass covers the Hakutaka to Iiyama in ordinary cars. The Liner bus is not a JR service, so you pay its ¥600. On 11 October 2026 the 7-day ordinary pass cost ¥50,000 on the official site (¥53,000 from an overseas agent).

Ride-share. The tourism bureau has announced an Uber ride-share service in the Nozawa and Iiyama area, scheduled for 11 December 2026 to 25 March 2027, 8:00 to 22:00, with taxi-level fares set in the app. Because it is due to stop at 22:00, don’t count on it for leaving after the fire.

Driving. For the 2026 festival every road in the village was no-parking. Off the road, the tourism bureau lists the Shinden multi-storey car park as open 24 hours at ¥100 an hour (checked 11 October 2026); the Central Terminal is for buses only. Check the 2027 traffic rules when they are posted. You need winter tyres in January, and the heavy-snow guide explains why I would not drive in unless you already drive on snow.

The days around the fire

On the 13th, from about 1 p.m. in the 2026 programme, the 25- and 42-year-olds haul two sacred trunks down from the Hikage slope to the ground, which takes about three hours. Households along the route offer sake to the haulers, and it is shared with onlookers. On the 15th in 2026, Oboro Tsukiyo no Yakata, the Takano Tatsuyuki memorial museum, ran a session for painting a wooden Dosojin figure from 10:00 to 15:00, for ¥500 including entry, with no booking. On 16 January, from dawn to sunset in the 2026 programme, people grill mochi over the remains of the shaden; the tourism bureau says eating it is believed to keep colds away for a year. It asks you to bring your own mochi, grill net, tongs and soy sauce.

What to combine it with

Nozawa Onsen is also a ski resort; the procession trunks come down from its Hikage slope. The NAGANO7 pass guide covers the 2026–27 joint season pass that includes Nozawa, and the early-bird pass guide explains why Nozawa’s own early pass is posted only to Japanese addresses. For a wider ski trip, Hakuba is the other big Nagano option, and ski resorts near Tokyo compares easier day trips.

Off the snow, the Snow Monkey Park at Jigokudani is in the same corner of northern Nagano (Nozawa Onsen Kotsu, the Liner’s operator, lists a snow monkey tour on its site), and Zenkoji is in Nagano city on the Shinkansen line home. Fujiyoshida’s Yoshida Fire Festival is on 26–27 August.

FAQ

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