There's been lots of rain and flooding here all summer, and sure enough there was a big rainstorm just a couple days before the fireworks. Of course the fireworks are shot off over a river, so all the seating is along the riverbank, between the berms that prevent flooding, which means that when the river floods, as it did the day before the festival, the whole seating area is underwater. So it wasn't until the morning of that they put out a definitive announcement that the flooding had abated and the seats were clear and the festival would go on. Our host suggested that we still bring towels to sit on and sturdy shoes since the place would likely still be wet and muddy, as it apparently had been in past years.
I had planned on just driving over there, but hadn't thought of the fact that an attendance of 100,000 might make finding parking a little difficult. Luckily someone else mentioned it beforehand and offered a ride to one of the other cities, Yokote, instead, where we'd then catch a train up to Omagari. We were also warned to buy a roundtrip ticket so we could avoid having to wait in the lines to buy the return ticket after the festival.
So quite early, about 1:15, we set off for Yokote and got there about 2:30, but even finding parking here was ridiculous since a huge number of other people do the same thing since this is one of the couple cities that has extra trains running to it after the festival. But we found some free parking not far from the station, and although there was no line for the ticket machines, there were already some barriers set up and station employees shepherding a quickly forming line for the trains going out to the festival, but not quite so long yet that we weren't able to catch the 3:00 train.
It was a short trip to Omagari and we got to the station about 3:30, but the festival seating was still a fifteen minute walk or so away. Also, our host missed her train and we couldn't get in without those tickets, so we had some time to just walk around a bit as we wandered over to the grounds and checked out all the food stalls that crammed into all the empty spaces lining the streets along the path to the venue. I bought some okonomiyaki to have for dinner once we settled into our seats before the fireworks started.
The roads leading to the seating area had signs set up naming them after different fruits to make it easier to know which way to go to get to your block of seats, and they all eventually funneled over one of the stairways over the river berm, which were all crammed with a flood of people going over them. From the top of the stairs you could get a panoramic view of the seating area and see just how huge it was. The benches on the inner side of the berm were the free seating, then the two far edges of the seating area were unassigned paid seating of some kind, and there were a couple little premium areas with chairs, but the paid, assigned seats made up the vast majority, and took up the whole center area.
After cresting the berm we waited on the other side for our host to arrive with the tickets and then divided the two sets among the attendees and headed off to our respective sections. The seats were just a long, wide swath of ground covered with a grid of flat wooden platforms raised a couple inches off the ground, with paths running horizontally and vertically between them. Each platform was something like ten by twenty of the 6'x6' boxes in size, and there were something like ten by five of these platforms making up the whole seating area, so basically it was huge. And then all along the back of the seating area was just lined with port-a-potties for the entire length of the seating area, making up the greatest number of them I've ever seen in one place.
So at 5:30 the daytime fireworks started. These were basically just colors and patterns of smoke, but I don't think I've ever really seen these kinds of colored smoke fireworks before, so it was interesting, but not particularly awe-inspiring. To make the smokestreams though a lot of them had little parachutes connected to the smoking firework part, and as the wind was blowing towards the seats, these would come down and land among the seats and everyone would crowd around the landing spot to try to grab them. I could have gotten one, but let the little kids next to me have it instead.
And with the wind blowing towards the seats, the whole time the ash and smoke from the fireworks, both these day ones and the night ones, was constantly raining down on and wafting over us. We had to brush it all out of our hair and dump it out of our shoes before leaving.
A lot of people hadn't shown up in time to watch these day fireworks, so there were still a lot of empty boxes, but people were still pouring over the berm this whole time, and now that the sun was going down the seats were finally starting to all fill up. All our group members had finally arrived too, and were breaking out all the snacks and drinks we had brought, including an entire watermelon. The box in front of us had been filled with a couple of middle school girls and some of their parents, so we all passed the time talking to each other and taking pictures and shared our watermelon with them.
Eventually it got dark enough that the main fireworks started. From what I can tell based on these and the program for my town's show (the one I didn't get to see), the thing is mostly paid for (and maybe even organized and run by) corporate sponsors. For my town it was all little local companies (plus the big local company, TDK), but for this giant event the sponsors were companies from all over Japan. There were about twenty parts to the show, and each part started with an announcement of who the sponsor for this part was, then one big circular firework, then one other firework of the company's choosing. There was a spot in the program where you could rate them and I guess it was sort of a friendly competition over who could make the most beautiful of these two fireworks or something. But then after each of those two fireworks, there would be a couple minute long firework show with some kind of musical accompaniment, anything from classical to pop. I don't know to what extent my town's fireworks were similar to this, whether they had music or mini shows between the corporate displays. Maybe they had the corporate competition and then just one big show afterwards like our Fouth of July fireworks.
Unfortunately the music wasn't listed in the program, but a few songs in the opening theme from Ghost in the Shell started playing, which a couple of the other ALTs recognized having heard, but I was the only one who could name what it was from. The other two songs I recognized were the Christmas carol "Oh Holy Night" and the "just married" wedding music.
With as long as it was, and the fact that someone had brought some beers, naturally I had to go to the bathroom at some point. I had made sure to go just before the show started so I wouldn't miss the start, and the place was mobbed! At first it looked like there was just one long line leading into the toilet area, but eventually the people further in the front of the line realized that the crowd was actually separated out into separate lines for each stall, but the lines were still about ten people or so long each. Aside from the normal port-a-potties, they had ones that were just urinals without doors, assumably to speed the lines a little.
So as the show wore down I knew I'd have to go again before getting home, and I knew the train station bathrooms would be mobbed, and I knew these bathrooms would get mobbed as soon as the show ended, so towards the end I figured I'd go again to get it out of the way while the crowds might still be low, and so of course it was right as my turn in line came that the finale started. But I finished up quick and got back onto the main path and was able to watch it while walking back to my seat. I call it the finale because it's the biggest display and occurs towards the end of the show, but there were actually a couple other displays after it before the end. Probably they do it a little early to even out the crowds of people leaving, since a big chunk of the crowd left as soon as that finale ended, while the others stuck around a little longer for more of the show. Since we knew the lines for the trains would be ridiculous and we would already be getting home late as it was, we skipped out only a little bit later, at about 9:30, just before the show was ending. So as we were walking out we could watch the last display or two, and the music for the last one I also recognized as the prefectural anthem. I mentioned it to the others, but most of them had apparently never even heard it before, although one or two others recognized it after I mentioned it. I guess not all the schools sing it during their cultural festival like mine does.
So eventually we managed to get out and back to the train station, and there were barriers set up far out of the station into the streets separating out lines for the trains heading in each direction. Of course there was someone in our group who hadn't gotten the return ticket ahead of time, but there was a special ticket booth set up at one point in the line which only held him up a little, and he was able to fight his way through the line and catch back up with us after buying it, because there was no way we were going to lose precious time and a place in line waiting for him.
So we waited in that line for over an hour before finally making it to the front and getting a train, then the twenty minute train ride and back to our car, the hour or so car ride back to our city, and finally my own drive back from that city to my own town. I ended up getting home at about one.
Someone else's recordings of the show:
Daylight fireworks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kLotunIx50
First half of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPypReGwfb0
Second half: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcMNeIyU5u4
A different recording of just the finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbFyK_lPPJk
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