Bizen Pottery Festival 2026 | A Town of the Six Ancient Kilns

The Bizen Pottery Festival runs on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October 2026, in the Imbe district of Bizen, Okayama Prefecture. This is the 42nd year. The 17th runs from 9am to 5pm.

The fair is held around Imbe station on the JR Ako Line. Step out of the station and the street of kilns and shops begins straight away. It is one of the very few pottery fairs in a producing region that works without a car.

Bizen uses no glaze at all. No painting either. The clay is formed, it goes into the kiln, and that is the whole of it. Every piece comes out of that firing with markings no other piece has, and that is what Bizen is. Finding the one that is yours is part of what the fair is for.

Dates for 2026

Two days only. The first day stays open an hour longer.

Day one draws the crowd, as it does at any pottery fair. If you want time to choose, come on the morning of the second day. But the final day closes at four, so if you can only move in the afternoon, take the first day.

The fair starts at the station door

The greatest advantage of the Bizen Pottery Festival is that it works entirely on public transport.

Step off at Imbe station on the JR Ako Line and the street of kilns and shops begins from the station forecourt. That is the decisive difference from Onta or Koishiwara, where you drive through a village in the hills.

The area around Imbe station is busy across the two days. Bizen is heavy, so a car makes carrying it home easier. Parking and traffic arrangements change from year to year, though. Check the Bizen City notice close to the date. We will not state anything definite here.

How to choose Bizen ware

This is the part of the fair that matters most.

Bizen has no glaze. So you cannot choose by saying a glaze is beautiful. What you look at is what happened inside the kiln.

None of these were applied by hand. Where in the kiln it stood, what was next to it, how the flame travelled. That is all it takes, so no two pieces of the same shape come out alike.

Hidasuki is the easiest to hunt for once you know the name. Straw is wrapped around the piece and fired, and the straw leaves red lines. Ask at the fair whether something is hidasuki and the maker will tell you how the straw was wound.

The idea of kiln markings is covered in keshiki, and firing without glaze in yakishime.

About Bizen as a region

Bizen is one of Japan's six ancient kilns, running without a break since the Heian period.

Even among the six, Bizen is the one that did not change. While other regions took up glaze and painting, Bizen went on firing unglazed. So a medieval piece and a modern one are made on the same thinking.

Bizen clay holds a lot of iron, is highly plastic, and closes up hard in the fire. The old line about it not breaking when thrown comes from that property of the clay. It travelled the country as the region for water jars and grinding bowls.

Bizen is also known as the ware that makes beer taste better. The fine texture of the surface is said to break the foam finer, and a beer mug is a Bizen staple.

The history is covered in the history of Bizen ware.

Going on to the sword museum at Osafune

Bizen is a pottery region and, at the same time, a region for Japanese swords. Osafune, in neighbouring Setouchi City, has been forging blades since the Kamakura period.

The Bizen Osafune Japanese Sword Museum sits inside a complex called Bizen Osafune Token no Sato. Beyond the blades on display, you can watch the trades at work: the smith, the lacquerer, the metal fitter, the engraver. In the sense that the people making the thing are right in front of you, it is much the same as a pottery fair.

The fair falls on a weekend, so the museum is open. But it is not within walking distance of Osafune station. A taxi or a rental car is the assumption. It is about twenty minutes from Bizen IC, so it fits more easily into the day for people arriving by car.

Look at it as clay and iron and the two connect. Bizen clay holds a lot of iron, which is why it closes up hard and turns red-black in the fire. A Japanese blade is forged from tamahagane, made from iron sand. In the same Bizen, you can see two answers to what fire does to iron. Even shinogi, the word for the ridge on a pot, began as a word for the ridge on a blade.

How to work the fair

• 1. Reach Imbe station by nine　The fair is at the station. Arrive as it opens and the street is still clear
• 2. Walk the street end to end first　Before buying, get a sense of the price range and the kinds of markings
• 3. Stop at the Bizen Pottery Museum　Old Bizen first, then modern work, and you see what has not changed
• 4. Go back to the kiln you kept thinking about　Kiln markings cannot be chosen from a photograph. Pick it up, hold it to the light, tilt it
• 5. If you have time and a car, go on to Osafune　The sword museum shows you the same Bizen iron from another angle

What to bring

• Cash　Kiln stalls are sometimes cash only
• Newspaper or a towel　Bizen has corners that chip. Something to wrap it in helps
• A rucksack　Bizen is heavy. If you are going home by train, both hands free is safer
• Shoes you can walk in　You will walk the street from the station and back
• Something to layer　Mid-October. Mornings and evenings turn cold

Related reading

Learn about Bizen

• Bizen Ware: Pottery With No Glaze at All
• Bizen Pottery History: 1,200 Years from Sueki to the Tea Bowl
• Bizen vs Hagi: Two Opposite Ideas of Wabi-Sabi

What the kiln leaves

• Hidasuki: The Red Straw Marks on Bizen Pottery
• Yakishime: Unglazed Pottery Fired to Its Limit
• Keshiki: How to Read the 'Landscape' on a Pot

Before you go to a pottery fair

• Pottery Fair Calendar
• How to Visit a Japanese Pottery Fair: 9 Regions Compared
• Japan's Six Ancient Kilns: All 6 Regions Compared
• Medome: How to Seal Unglazed Pottery Before First Use

Pieces available at Nokaze

• Bizen Pottery | Unglazed Japanese Stoneware from Okayama