Overview
- Organisers reported a record attendance of roughly 700,000 at Japan-Tag in Düsseldorf, with officials and media issuing the figure after the event concluded on Saturday night.
- The day-long festival opened with speeches from city and state leaders and featured music, dance, martial-arts demos, Ikebana and Origami workshops, food stalls and a karaoke bus along the Rhine.
- Cosplay remained a major draw, with thousands of visitors in elaborate costumes taking part in a popular contest at Robert-Lehr-Ufer despite hot, sunny weather that had many using fans and parasols for shade.
- The programme closed at 23:00 with a 25-minute Japanese Hanabi fireworks show called “What a wonderful World,” designed and fired by Hideki Kubota and streamed online for remote viewers.
- Now in its 23rd edition, Japan-Tag is billed as Europe’s largest Japan festival and underlines Düsseldorf’s long-standing local Japanese community and its cultural and economic links with Japan.