Yokote Chrysanthemum Festival

The Yokote Chrysanthemum Festival is among the largest chrysanthemum displays in Akita Prefecture, held at Akita Furusato Mura from late October into early November. Growers from across the prefecture bring work tended over a full year, and two competitions — the Yokote city show and the Akita prefectural show — run at the same time. Having both under one roof widens the range of entries and categories, covering everything from three-stem large blooms to cascading kengai forms and small-flowered bonsai, so visitors can survey the whole craft in one visit. The venue is a complex with craft workshops, a planetarium and restaurants, making it easy to spend a full day. Yokote is better known for its winter kamakura snow huts, but in autumn the chrysanthemums take over — and falling in the narrow window before the snows, the festival marks the close of the Tohoku autumn.