2017 Shingen-Ko Festival Preparation

by F. Agustimahir 

Photo of Garuda Indonesia Troops with Governor of Yamanashi. 

Opening

In early April this year - 8th April to be exact - Yamanashi Prefecture held a big event: the 46th Shingen-Ko Festival, held to commemorate the Sengoku era warlord, Takeda Shingen. Thanks to participation from around 1500 samurais, in 2012 this event was recorded as the biggest samurai parade in the world by the Guiness Book of World Records.

One of the main locations for this festival is Kofu Castle. Many sakura trees are planted on this castle, so in early April their blooming sakura always decorate Shingen-Ko Festival with a gentle beauty.

This year, foreign samurai troops joined the festival for the first time: representatives from Garuda Indonesia. Thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding between Yamanashi Prefecture and Garuda Indonesia, the airline received the privilege of sending a battalion of samurai. 

Garuda Indonesia Troops is taking a rest while waiting deployment ceremony.

This festival is held by Yamanashi Tourism Organization, a company that cooperates with the Prefectural Government, who acts as one of its funders. This kind of company is known as a  'Public Interest Incorporated Corporation', or “公益社団法人” - Koueki Shadan Houjin. There are special regulations for this kind of organization. 

Chill out, I will not be telling you about those regulations. 

Since the Global Tourism and Exchange Division where I work today was participating in this festival, this time I will share with you how we prepared for it. 

D-2 (6th April 2017) 

Representatives from a few divisions in Tourism Department had to join the meeting today, as this is the last meeting before the D-day. 

Meeting nuance.

At this meeting, I received a bundle called 'Guidelines for Civil Servants - 46th Shingen-Ko Festival' containing 46 pages. Some of the information inside included event rundown, event layout, and data summaries from the very first festival!
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'Guidelines for Civil Servants - 46th Shingen-Ko Festival'

In the rundown, there were details of the deployment for each of the troops. For the Garuda Indonesia Troops, we had to gather in front of the Prefectural Office at 15:45, start to walk to Kofu Castle for the deployment ceremony from 16:01, and start the parade from Kofu Castle at 18:02. As an illustration, 38 battalion troops participated in this year’s parade, with around 40 people for each battalion. And, when it came to the D-Day, even the smallest details went according to schedule!
Salute!

There were other details written on the event layout. such as road closing and opening times with parade participant special zones; numbers, points, and rights for the staff in the main zone; and a parade route complete with information about the horse riding points for each troops’s General, and the points of deployment, declared during the parade by the Takeda Shingen warlord with a battle cry. 

For me, the most interesting point in this guideline was the one page containing data about parade viewing numbers, the date and time of event, the actor playing Takeda Shingen warlord, the troops’ deployment location, and the weather from the first ever event in 1970. 

Based on that data, 2000 was the year with the most tourists recorded, around 257.000. The deployment ceremony has been held at Kofu Castle (also called as Maizuru Castle)  30 times, with the rest held at Kofu Station. 

Other than that, there is information that shows that in 1976 and 2011 the festival was not held due to the oil shock and the Great East Japan Earthquake. 

Data about weather began to be recorded from the third festival in 1972. Evidently, the festival has been dominated by clear weather 26 times. The other weather conditions were 6 cases of rain, one case of a spring storm, one case of snow, and other weather conditions.

Records about weather are interesting because there is an event regulation that says the parade will not be canceled for any weather except emergency conditions.

For example, if it rains, the warning alarm for the Kofu area will be ringing at 25mm/hour rainfall, and the event will be stopped when rainfall becomes 40mm/hour. This information is written in the guideline too.

Unfortunately, I cannot upload the guideline due to civil servants only document regulation.  

At the end of the meeting, the chairman said this."Every year there are new civil servants in the Tourism Department, or those for whom it is their first time to join this festival. On the D-day, it is unclear whether or not we can communicate with each other easily, so use the guideline that you hold today as a tool for making decisions on the location. That is why, as long as there are no emergencies, you can make your own decisions." 

What a good conclusion to the meeting, delegating tasks and authority well.

D-1 (7 April 2017)

One of the activities for the Tourism Department civil servants today was checking the actual location and travelling time from the determined route. This was done because some people's task will be to guide the troops, who will have a slightly different route and activities from the others.

Checking actual travelling time. Photo location in Kofu Castle 

For example, the Garuda Indonesia Troops had been excused from the closing ceremony, so the end of the parade did not come back to Kofu Castle, but directly to the Yamanashi Prefectural Office.
These troops also did not have to do any special performance when entering the Kofu City Office area. 

Other than that, other civil servants had the task of putting up bicycle parking prohibitions and parade participant special area information signs. 

The Tourism Department Civil Servant were wearing organizer jacket in the green color. Photo location is around Kofu city office.

Not many tasks to do today, but checking the actual conditions like this helps to ensure the festival goes well. 

Closing

If I look carefully, the things that make this festival go well are detailed plans, obeying the set guidelines, and being on time. For me, this kind of preparation is evidence that the Government is serious about developing their tourism potential. Two thumbs up! 

On March 2016, the Japanese Government decided to double its overseas tourists by 2020 from 20 million into 40 million. This was mainly due to overseas tourists achievements in 2015, where the number reached 19.7 million. They also successfully reached 24 million overseas tourists in 2016. 

Indonesia itself is one of Japan's main tourism markets. Many promotions and special provisions are offered to Indonesian tourists. Indonesian tourists reached 22.539 people in January 2017, a 64.1% increase compared to last year and the second highest increase rate after Malaysia, which reached 73.9%. Interesting, isn't it? 

Seeing that number makes me want to write a comparison with the number of Japanese tourists to Indonesia, but sadly, it is hard to find the data. But somehow, I'm sure the Indonesian Government is doing its best to increase visitors from overseas. 

So next time, I will try to share a few reasons why Japan chooses Indonesia and other countries surrounding it as their main market. 

Sincerely. 

Extra

"Sir, please bring dogfruit next time you came here. If you please. 😜"