This year’s event featured 34 performances at 15 venues, representing 60% or so of the event’s pre-pandemic scale; it was however a bonus that organizers were able to hold concerts on the streets, outdoors and in commercial facilities, events which they had previously been forced to cancel. Organizers were pleased that the Ogikubo Music Festival’s aim of getting visitors to rediscover the appeal of the Ogikubo neighborhood was realized, even partially.
Additionally, the Fresh Junior Concert was held for the first time in three years. This is a pioneering concert in which children can participate and preschoolers can attend. This year’s milestone concert marked ten years of the event, underlining the importance of its continuation.
The 8th Mirai Yume Concert was also held again for the first time in three years and featured the Minamisoma Municipal Haramachi Daiichi Junior High School brass band club. All the junior high school students from Suginami-ku and Minamisoma City (in Fukushima Prefecture) were performing for the first time, and the hope is that from this beginning, students from both areas will have more exchange going forward.
Organizers would like to carry on holding this music festival in the hope it boosts the image of Ogikubo as a comfortable and easy place to live, and as a place that makes people feel glad they live there.