Kameido Fox-Lineage Association Finalizes Concrete Plan for Next Year's Joint Festival, Provisionally Named "Three-Lineage Autumn Festival"

As previously reported, the dog- and bear-lineage neighborhood associations in Fukagawa held the area's first joint clan autumn festival this year, drawing roughly 1,200 visitors, and the fox-lineage association in Kameido formally agreed on the 9th to join starting next year. At a three-way joint organizing committee meeting on the 17th, the groups agreed to expand next year's event from a single day to a two-day weekend. The venue will remain centered on the park in Fukagawa previously used, with plans to add a fox-lineage stall area in an adjoining shopping street.

The three groups agreed on a provisional name, the "Three-Lineage Autumn Festival." "It's just a working name, but saying it out loud, it fit better than I expected," Saotome said. "We're also considering opening up the official name to a public naming contest among local children by next spring." Co-organizers Yuto Takinami, 26, of dog lineage, and Tamaki Hiiragi, 29, of bear lineage, commented, "Having a name settled focuses the mind on the organizing side too."

Saotome said the fox-lineage association expects to bring in around 20 festival stalls, drawing on its lineage's tradition as shopkeepers to offer a lineup distinct from the dog- and bear-lineage associations' existing offerings, such as pottery and taiko drumming. "We don't want to just borrow a corner of their festival — we want to bring a pillar of our own. Festival stalls are something the existing event didn't have, so I think people will look forward to it," he said. He added that expanding the scale also raises practical issues, including traffic control and waste management, and that the group plans to begin consulting with the ward as early as next month.

With next year's turnout potentially reaching around 2,000 visitors, the organizing committee flagged traffic-control staffing and additional waste collection points as issues to work out. Saotome said the group plans to begin consulting with the ward's relevant office as early as next month: "We're treating this as a different undertaking from the one-day event and are prepared to go through the permitting process from scratch." The existing Fukagawa associations, drawing on how stretched they were handling visitors at the previously reported autumn festival, have also proposed expanding their use of contracted security staff.

As previously reported on the 8th, inquiries about the Fukagawa clan festival had come in from associations in other districts as well, but as of the 17th, Kameido's fox-lineage association remains the only one to have formally committed to joining. The organizing committee has settled on holding the event as a three-way festival for now, saying any expansion of participation beyond that would be considered again the year after next. "It's true that the more lineages join, the more fun it gets, but first we want to get it right with these three," Takinami said.

Specifics such as stall fees and security arrangements will be worked out at the organizing committee early next year. "I said before that I'd told everyone to go easy on us since our lineage is good at standing out — but in the end, everyone's getting fired up anyway," Saotome said with a laugh. Hiiragi added, "Next year, I want people to see mountain-quarter craft cooking, fox-lineage festival stalls, and dog-lineage drumming all side by side."

Watching three lineages layer themselves onto a single festival, it becomes clear that the differences between them aren't competing so much as adding up into something richer. When the provisional name "Three-Lineage Autumn Festival" came out of Saotome's mouth, there was no hesitation in his expression. This reporter plans to keep following how that richness takes shape by the time next year's festival arrives.