Top Things to Do in Yokohama in October 2026

Top Things to Do in Yokohama in October　Hasedera NIGHT TABLE
Yokohama Events

Top Things to Do in Yokohama in October 2026

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October in Kanagawa doesn’t let go of summer easily. Typhoon season is still technically a thing this early in the month, and you’ll get days that feel more like August than autumn. But this is also when the region’s biggest historical festivals wake up, Kamakura and Odawara both throw parades soaked in samurai history, and half the prefecture seems to set off fireworks one last time before the year turns properly cold.

I dug through things to do in Yokohama in October, and included the wider Kanagawa area for good measure. After all that research, here are the ones I think are worth planning around. Boat shows, temple dinners, a fireworks festival that’s been running since 1929, and one very confusing double celebration of two different Chinese New Years happening ten days apart in the same neighborhood.

Same rule as always. Check the official link close to your date. October still gets storms strong enough to cancel an outdoor event with a day’s notice.

Yokohama Floating Yacht Show (ヨコハマフローティングヨットショー)

Part of the bigger Japan International Boat Show, this is the floating half held right at Bayside Marina. You can walk the docks and actually board most of the yachts on display, cabins and flying bridges included. There’s a kids’ program too, with mini boats and kayaks in a roped-off shallow area, so this isn’t purely a rich-people’s-toys showcase even if it looks that way from the parking lot.

  • Date: October 2–4, 2026
  • Location: Yokohama Bayside Marina
  • Fee: Check official site, some experience programs are ticketed separately from general viewing
  • Website: kazi.co.jp/yachtshow

Hasedera NIGHT TABLE (長谷寺NIGHT TABLE)

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Hasedera closes to regular visitors at 5pm and then reopens for this ticketed evening event, a lit-up temple grounds walk, a live concert in front of the main hall, and a buffet dinner built around Kamakura and Shonan ingredients. It’s pricey and small (55 people per night), so this isn’t a spontaneous stop. Book ahead if you want it, and know this one’s adults and older kids only, no small children and no pets allowed on site.

  • Date: October 2–4, 2026
  • Location: Hasedera Temple, Kamakura
  • Fee: ¥17,850 per person, reservation required
  • Website: hasedera-nighttable.com

Kawasaki Tamagawa Fireworks Festival (川崎市制記念多摩川花火大会)

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Started in 1929 and it’s still one of the biggest fireworks shows in the whole Kanto region, roughly 6,000 shells over the Tama River riverbed, watched jointly from both the Kawasaki and Setagaya sides. It gets seriously crowded. If you want to actually sit rather than stand for an hour beforehand, look into the paid viewing seats sold ahead of time.

  • Date: October 3, 2026
  • Location: Tama River Riverbed, Kawasaki side
  • Fee: Free to view from public riverbed areas, paid seating available
  • Website: k-kankou.jp/fireworks

Isehara Tourism Dokan Festival (伊勢原観光道灌まつり)

Isehara’s biggest event of the year, honoring the warlord Ota Dokan who died in the area. The main draw is a full costume parade recreating his falconry procession alongside a separate procession for Hojo Masako, Minamoto no Yoritomo’s wife. Local celebrities play the lead roles every year, and it draws a genuinely large crowd from outside the prefecture. This one’s a proper time-travel spectacle if you catch it at the right hour.

18th Miura Night Market: Lantern Night Walk (みうら夜市〜灯ろうナイトウォーク〜)

Three old shopping streets in Misaki’s harbor district lit up with paper lanterns for two nights, with local shop owners cooking up whatever they’re known for right there on the street. Misaki tuna is the obvious draw, but the whole point is wandering and grazing rather than sitting down for a full meal. Fairly compact, walkable in an hour if you’re not stopping at every stall.

  • Date: October 3–4, 2026
  • Location: Misaki Shitamachi Shopping District, Miura
  • Fee: Free to attend, food purchased per stall
  • Website: miura-info.ne.jp

Yokohama Craft Beer Tasting Event (横浜のクラフトビール飲み比べイベント)

A genuinely relaxed one compared to most beer festivals on this list, no big tents or loud stages, just a historic courtyard turned into a tasting ground for 13 different beers all brewed right here in Yokohama. The setting does a lot of the work, the Archives of History building and its rose terrace make this feel more like a garden party than a festival. Free entry too, so it’s an easy add if you’re already in the Kannai area that weekend.

BAY WALK MARKET 2026 / Yoi Weekend (BAY WALK MARKET 2026 / ヨイウィーケンド)

A sprawling waterfront market that runs a full four days, with the “Yoi Weekend” portion built specifically around Kanagawa sake, local craft beer, wine, and food from independent restaurants that don’t usually get this kind of spotlight. This is less a single event and more a long stretch of the Minatomirai waterfront turned into a rolling food and drink crawl. Good one to wander into more than once over the four days rather than trying to do it all in one visit.

Yokohama Oimo Banpaku, Sweet Potato Expo 2026 (横浜おいも万博2026)

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An entire outdoor festival built around sweet potatoes, which sounds like a niche premise until you see the lineup. Every variety of roasted oimo you can think of, plus sweet potato desserts pushed in creative directions well beyond the usual yaki-imo cart. This is a strong one for a family outing, low on crowds compared to the bigger beer festivals and genuinely built for grazing with kids in tow.

Double Tenth National Day Celebration (双十節)

Here’s where it gets confusing if you’re new to Yokohama’s Chinatown. October 1st is China’s National Day, celebrated with its own parade. Ten days later, on October 10th, Chinatown celebrates Taiwan’s National Day with a completely separate parade, lion dances, and a marching band from a local school. Both happen in the same few blocks within the same ten days, and they represent genuinely different communities within Chinatown’s history. Worth knowing which one you’ve wandered into.

  • Date: October 10, 2026
  • Location: Yokohama Chinatown
  • Fee: Free
  • Website: chinatown.or.jp

If you’re already in the Yokohama area, why not go to see the city’s famous skyline views?

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Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise Autumn Fireworks (花火シンフォニア)

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The same music-synced fireworks show from September gets an autumn edition, shifted earlier in the evening since the sun sets sooner now. Same format, roughly 2,500 shells over ten minutes, timed down to a tenth of a second with the soundtrack. If you missed it over the summer, this is your second chance before it goes fully into winter mode. The Hakkeijima Sea Paradise Fireworks are one of my favorites! Read why here.

  • Date: October 10–11, 2026
  • Location: Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise Boardwalk
  • Fee: Park admission required, check site for viewing details
  • Website: seaparadise.co.jp

Atsugi Ayu Festival (あつぎ鮎まつり)

Atsugi’s single biggest event, celebrating the ayu (sweetfish) that the Sagami River is known for. Day one closes with a genuinely massive fireworks show, roughly 10,000 shells finishing with a Niagara-style waterfall finale. Day two is the family stuff, kids catching ayu by hand in the river, a parade, and mikoshi in the streets. Fifty years running strong and it draws crowds from well outside the city.

Yokohama JAZZ PROMENADE (横濱JAZZ PROMENADE)

One of Japan’s biggest jazz festivals, and the whole city genuinely becomes the venue. Street corners, hall stages, and clubs across Kannai and the Red Brick Warehouse area all get performances running simultaneously. Over a hundred amateur bands play the street stages alone, so even wandering without a plan gets you something. This one’s been running since 1993 and doesn’t feel like it’s slowing down.

  • Date: October 10–11, 2026
  • Location: Kannai Hall, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, and various venues across Yokohama
  • Fee: Street performances free, hall shows ticketed separately
  • Website: jazzpro.jp

World Festa Yokohama 2026 (ワールドフェスタ・ヨコハマ2026)

An international food and culture festival right on the waterfront, now in its 30-something-th year. Expect a proper spread of global cuisine stalls plus music and dance performances representing a wide range of countries. It’s an easy one to combine with a regular Yamashita Park visit since the whole thing sits inside the park’s event plaza.

Odawara Chochin Festival (小田原ちょうちんまつり)

Named for the collapsible paper lanterns Odawara invented for travelers crossing Hakone safely at night, this festival fills the castle park with lantern dances, a taiko drum battle, and a neighborhood mikoshi parade split between two traditional carrying styles. Around 1,600 lanterns handmade by local schoolkids hang around the castle’s main tower area for weeks around the event, lit up after dark. Worth timing an evening visit around the lantern display even if you miss the festival day itself.

Kanagawa Gourmet & Specialty Market (かながわグルメ＆特産市)

Nineteen local commerce associations from across the prefecture bring their best regional food and products to one easy-access spot right outside Ebina Station. This is a genuinely good one for discovering food you wouldn’t otherwise know exists in your own prefecture, small producers and local specialties that don’t usually make it to Yokohama proper. Kitchen trucks round it out for anyone who wants something hot on the spot.

Komyoji Temple Ojuya Hoyo, Ten Nights Memorial Service (光明寺 十夜法要)

This one goes back over 500 years, a Buddhist memorial service so significant it started the Ojuya tradition now held at Jodo sect temples across the whole country. Komyoji itself is the birthplace of it. Expect chanting through the day and night, vendor stalls lining the approach, and a genuinely different atmosphere from the region’s more festival-like events. This is solemn, not celebratory, and worth visiting with that in mind.

Diwali in Yokohama (ディワリ・イン・ヨコハマ)

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Yokohama has a real historical tie to India, the first Indian trading post in Japan opened here in 1863, and the city is sister-cities with Mumbai. This festival celebrates that connection properly, Indian dance, live music, Bollywood-style fashion shows, food stalls, and a candlelit finale that gives the whole thing its “festival of lights” meaning. One of the more visually striking events on this list.

Fujisawa Enoshima Fireworks Festival (ふじさわ江の島花火大会)

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A smaller show than some of the region’s giants, around 1,000 shells over 30 minutes, but the setting is the whole point. Enoshima sits right there as the backdrop, and the finale includes the Shonan area’s only 2-shaku shell, a firework that blooms nearly 480 meters wide in the air. Come early since three different train stations feed into this one small stretch of beach.

11th Yokohama Yosakoi Festival, Yoiyosakoi (横浜よさこい祭り〜良い世さ来い)

A community-built festival, not a corporate one, now spread across seven venues in the Minatomirai Shinko district. Around 120 teams and 2,800 dancers show up from across the country, so the energy here is a step up from the smaller Sagamihara Yosakoi you’d catch in September. Colorful costumes, wooden naruto clappers, and a genuine sense that this whole thing was built by locals who wanted their city to have a proper dance festival.

Kurihama Flower World Cosmos Festival (くりはま花の国 コスモスまつり)

Roughly a million cosmos flowers across an open field, and unlike a lot of flower festivals this one runs for over a month rather than one weekend, so there’s real flexibility in when you go. A free flower-picking event happens on the last weekend, which is worth timing your visit around if your kid likes bringing something home. The park itself has a giant Godzilla slide too, so nobody in your group runs out of things to do.

Kamakura Hase Market (長谷の市)

A small, twice-a-year neighborhood market run by the shopping streets around Hasedera and Kamakura’s Great Buddha, held every April and October on the third Sunday. Flea market stalls, food vendors, a morning market feel, and a stamp rally for kids. It’s low-key compared to everything else on this list, more a genuine local event than a tourist draw, and there’s no dedicated event website since the neighborhood shopping association runs it directly.

Before visiting the market, be sure to check out my complete guide to the temple:

Hasedera Temple Kamakura: A Detailed Guide to Each Must-See Spot (Updated 2026)

Yokohama Marathon 2026 (横浜マラソン2026)

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Even as a spectator this is worth knowing about, since it closes a huge chunk of the city for the morning. Runners start at Landmark Tower, pass the Red Brick Warehouse and Yamashita Park, and finish at Rinko Park with the Bay Bridge in view. It’s the only marathon in Japan that runs a stretch on the elevated expressway, which is a genuinely strange thing to watch happen to a highway you normally sit in traffic on.

  • Date: October 25, 2026
  • Location: Minatomirai / Yokohama Bay Area
  • Fee: Free to watch, runner entry is a separate paid registration
  • Website: yokohamamarathon.jp

47th Yokosuka Mikoshi Parade (よこすかみこしパレード)

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Around 50 mikoshi and floats from across Yokosuka converge on the city’s central street for this one, drawing roughly 65,000 spectators most years. It’s historically had a genuinely international flavor too, with sailors from the nearby US Navy base sometimes joining in, though that participation varies year to year. Loud, packed, and a good one if you want to see mikoshi culture without the shrine-specific ritual context of something like Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.

National Hometown Fair (全国ふるさとフェア)

A big outdoor food market bringing regional specialties from across Japan to the Red Brick Warehouse, kitchen trucks included. This is the kind of event where you’ll find a prefecture’s specific local snack you’d otherwise need to actually travel there for. Good for grazing your way through the country in one afternoon without leaving Yokohama.

Bashamichi Festival (馬車道まつり)

Bashamichi Street was where gas lamps and ice cream both made their first appearance in Japan, and this festival leans hard into that history. British-style carriages and rickshaws roll down the street, and locals dress up in Rokumeikan-era gowns to recreate the feel of the port’s early foreign-trade days. There’s a flea market, live concerts, and outdoor chess mixed in too, so it’s not purely a costume parade.

  • Date: October 31–November 3, 2026
  • Location: Bashamichi Shopping Street, Yokohama
  • Fee: Free
  • Website: bashamichi.or.jp

Sankeien Chrysanthemum Exhibition (三溪園 菊花展)

Correction on the dates here: the sourced information puts this at November 9–24, 2026, not October 31–23 as originally listed. Large chrysanthemum displays fill the garden’s central plaza, including dramatic Edo-style blooms with twisted, bent petals, set against Sankeien’s historic buildings. There’s also a special flower arrangement installed inside the Kyu-Yaraihara House this year, though that building’s exterior-only viewing is in effect during ongoing roof repairs.

FAQs: Things to Do in Yokohama in October

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Which of these need advance booking?

Almost everything here is free and walk-up. The one exception is Hasedera NIGHT TABLE, which is ticketed, capped at 55 people a night, and genuinely sells out. Book that one well ahead if it interests you.

Is October still typhoon season here?

Technically yes, especially in the first half of the month. Several of these events, particularly the fireworks shows, carry rain-cancels-no-reschedule policies. Check the official link the morning of if the forecast looks rough.

Which events are best for a Kamakura day trip?

Komyoji’s Ojuya Hoyo, the Hase Market, and Hasedera NIGHT TABLE are all clustered in the same part of Kamakura and could realistically be combined depending on your dates. Just know NIGHT TABLE needs a reservation well before you show up.

What should I know before going to the Yokohama Marathon as a spectator?

Major roads through Minatomirai, the Red Brick Warehouse area, and parts of the bay close for the morning. If you’re not there to watch, plan your own trip around the closures rather than through them.

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