Tokyo Rainbow Festival 2015 Report

LGBT Festival in Tokyo

On Sunday August 16th, there was “the 16th Tokyo Rainbow Festival” – an outdoor festival on the street of Shinjuku Ni-Chome in the summer. This festival is organized by the Shinjuku Ni-Chome Promotional Committee, which is an organization of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) pubs and bars in the Ni-Chome area. Since the year 2000, the Committee has been organizing this festival every year. This year, the festival lasted for 3 hours, from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock in the afternoon. For this festival, the area Ni-Chome of Shinjuku, around the Shinjuku Park, was closed for circulation. People walked around freely during those hours. On the street, there were many street stands organized by pubs and bars, which are the members of the Committee. Then a parade of people showing their performances went through the street. It started from Japanese traditional parade, Mikoshi, in which people carried a shrine along the street. This year’s festival was a great success. The food and drinks on the street stands were quickly sold out. Here are some of the pictures of the festivals (I only show the pictures that I got permission to put it on this website).

Photos

For the future of Ni-chome

From the president of the Shinjuku Ni-Chome Promotional Committee: “For the future of Ni-chome”

At last, I interview toshi (Bar “Base”: Twitter @Base_toshi), the president of the Shinjuku Ni-Chome Promotional Committee who organized the Tokyo Rainbow festival.

“I was very happy to organize again this wonderful Tokyo Rainbow festival this year. I was pleased that there were more people participating this year compare to last year. It’s been 16 years since we first organized the festival in 2000. We have organized the festival every year. Thanks to the hard work of all the owners of bars and pubs, who participate the Committee, we could continue until now. On top of that, I would like to thank the people from Ni-Chome neighbourhood association and the people who live in this area for understanding and participating this event. On the 29th of this month, our Committee will organize another festival, called “Ni-Chome Yukata festival.” I hope many people would come to Ni-Chome, wearing Yukata to enjoy the end of the summer.”