The Summer Festival is an all day event with live bands, performances, food, and the grand finale — the largest fireworks display in Okinawa.
The fireworks start at precisely 8:00 PM. Kadena ITT had four tour buses that left the baes 2:00 PM. The cost with ITT was $20 per person. The tour busses are great if you don’t want to drive, or deal with the traffic, yourself. However, you loose a lot flexibility. We left our apartment closer to 3:00 PM. It was a relaxing drive on the Okinawa Expressway, but from Okinawa-Minami to Nago, the toll is ¥590 each way in a Kei car. The drive through Nago was uneventful. About 2 km from the Expo Park, traffic came to a standstill. If you get to the event early, you might have a chance to park in the main parking. If you get their later, there is an overflow lot that has shuttles to take you to the event. We took the third option and found some street parking which had a 40 minute walk to the event. I’m not a patient person and I’d rather walk a long way than wait in traffic.
We finally got to the Festival around 5 PM. Our first objective was to claim spot on the beach. Some people had folding chairs, sun shelters, or pop-up canopies set up in their spots, but blankets, like we had, were much more common. The beach was crowded, but there were still plenty of open spots. If you want to look like a seasoned pro, bring four plastic bags with you, fill them up with sand, and place them on your blanket to hold it down. We are not seasoned pros, but I brought a camera tripod to try to take pictures of the fireworks, and it held the blanket down just fine. I would have had problems if it was a windier day. The entire Expo Park is filled with people. The beach has a view of the main stage and the fireworks, but some people are only interested in the fireworks and claimed nice shady spots on the hillside. Standing is also an option, but you’ll be at the event for several hours — more if your tied to an ITT tour group. Another option is to book a hotel near the Festival Site. The Orion Motobu Resort & Spa is located right next to Expo Park and has amazing view of the fireworks. On a regular weekend, it costs about ¥40,000 per night. It might cost more during Summer Festival and it looks like their already fully booked for next year.
Around the Expo Park, there were about a dozen food vendors, including KFC. There was also a slide and some activities for small children. Most people appeared to be relaxing. We spent around ¥3,500 on food and drink from the vendors and brought it back to our blanket to enjoy the show. A Japanese band played some mellow acoustic music. It was followed by what may have been a comedy performance. I’m not sure. A group of people spent about 20 minutes talking. The group on stage laughed a lot. None of the people around me laughed. It was followed by a 20 minute set by another Japanese band that had a awesome singer. The final performance was a DJ that seemed to get the crowd worked up. At some point in his set, “Funtime Productions”, an American group, had a performance that wasn’t quite as good as “Entertainment Worldwide.”
The Fireworks started exactly at 8:00 PM. After a 20 minute show, there was a 10 minute intermission to allow the pyrotechnic crew to reset their gear before the final 20 minute show. The beach was extremely crowded at this point and there is zero chance that you would be able to use the bathroom during the intermission. The show was set to music, including some popular english songs. Lots of bright lights and loud explosions. It is the largest Firework show in Okinawa and is one of the best firework displays that I have ever seen.
Following the grand finale at precisely 8:50 PM, there was a mass exodus of people. It was a slow moving herd that was a pre-cursor to the traffic jam to come. If you parked in the main lot, you would be about to stay parked in the main lot. We trudged along with the group heading to the overflow lot. Hundreds of them stopped to wait for the shuttle, but it was only a 2 km walk from the Park to overflow parking. 8 shuttle busses passed us as we walked to the overflow parking. That meant there was still hundreds of people waiting in line. Getting out of the overflow parking lot would have been easy, but further down the street you needed to merge. As we kept walking, we passed all of the cars waiting to merge on the road. We finally arrived at our hidden parking spot at 9:50 PM. As we drove back towards Nago, we somehow found ourselves behind the convoy of four ITT buses. I followed the convoy as they cruised down the Expressway. They were probably back on base around 11:30 while we went directly home.
If you wanted to take full advantage of the 1.5 hour drive each way, you could add the Churami Aquarium to your morning and make it an all day event.