This year marks the fourth NEWTOWN festival, an event which last year attracted 10,000 visitors over two days and has continued to grow with each event. Up until now the event has been held at Tama‘s Digital Hollywood University, Hachioji Production Studio (the site of a former elementary school).This year the additional location of Parthenon Avenue outside Tama Center Station in Tama City will act as the main venue, more than quadrupling the venue size and also substantially expanding the number of events and attractions from the 300 or so last year.

“Creating a cultural festival together: NEWTOWN 2019” is a free event that children and elderly people alike will enjoy, offering numerous participatory programs transcending the boundaries between professional and amateur, and featuring live music, art exhibitions, movie screenings, theater and dance performances, rakugo traditional comic storytelling, poetry reading, a singing contest, live discussion, traditional bon-odori dance, workshops, children’s play areas, and more. A diverse array of arts and entertainment featured on a day-to-day basis in web magazine CINRA.NET comes together on the site of a former elementary school.

A plethora of programs is planned, including live concerts with Kaneko Ayano, Kenta Maeno, Satoko Shibata, Oh shu, Tatsuya Kokufu, Chiaki Mayumura and others; a participatory fashion show“Betabome Fashion Show”with commentary by model Miyu Otani, 7A, Karin Ohira from GINZA magazine and She is editors; workshops (“inseparable + Sample/Workshop”)featuring Shu Matsui, Itaru Sugiyama, Kim Itoh, Kyohei Sakaguchi and Aoi Nozu as instructors; an “Improvisation Workshop” with recipient of the 156th Akutagawa Prize, writer Sumito Yamashita; daytime live DJ sets on a high wooden yagura stage and a participatory bon odori festival dance event“NEW Bon Dance” in the afternoon; an interactive live puzzle event “Real Escape Game” by SCRAP; and a singing contest for young and old competitors alike.