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Odori Festivals

2017年10月11日 (水)

So tomorrow is the last day of this year’s 2017 Odori Autumn Festival. Although I haven’t gone yet, I plan on going this afternoon. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and I expect it’ll be crowded and fun. I don’t know if you remember, but when the Autumn Festival first started, it was barely two weeks long. Now it goes for a full month. From Odori block 4 to block 10, the park is packed full of food vendors, wine and beer sellers and plenty of tables and tents. If you think about it, Odori is dominated by festivals all throughout the warm months.

I like this, but i wonder how much time that leaves non-festival goers to enjoy the park. Some people don’t want to navigate crowded festivals all summer. Some people want to enjoy the peaceful refuge of the park while it’s still warm outside.

Being a public park, citizens should be allowed to eat and drink where they please. During the beer and autumn festivals, however, people are asked not to carry outside food and drinks into the park. They can’t stop you, of course. But it’s perceived as like bad behavior to bring in conbini drinks to a space where everyone else is paying vendors for their beverages. Even just sitting on the benches, people will scold one another about where to purchase their victuals. In this respect, I feel like the park is increasingly being taken over for commercial purposes, and thus estranging those who don’t want to participate in these festival markets.

Odori is being monetized.

This is nothing new, as the snow festival has been drawing money-spending spectators for decades. I’m all for stimulating economic growth, but it seems a bit unfair to give these events jurisdiction over who eats and drinks what and where. Why should people be forced to drink Asahi products, just because they want to sit in Odori block six 6 on a mid-August afternoon? Of course there are plenty of details I’m glossing over. But I feel that citizens should retain the right to use public property within reason.

What do you think?