Kyoto Pottery Expo 2026: The 50th Kiyomizu Ware Fair

The Kiyomizu-yaki no Sato Matsuri runs from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026, across the Kiyomizu Ware Complex in Yamashina, Kyoto. This is the 50th edition. To mark it, the fair is taking a new name: KYOPO, the Kyoto Pottery Expo.

For three days, the makers, kilns, wholesalers and shops of the complex open their doors as one. There are more than 100 ceramics booths. It is about twenty minutes by bus from Kyoto Station, which makes it one of the very few pottery fairs in Japan you can fit around a day of city sightseeing.

This article covers the dates, how to get there, and how to work a site this size in the time you have. For the ware itself, see Kyo ware and Kiyomizu ware, and for dates across the country, the Pottery Fair Calendar. For the rest of the year, where to buy ceramics in Kyoto covers the shops and streets outside the fair.

Dates for 2026

Entry is free. The fair runs in rain and is cancelled only in severe weather.

If you want time to choose, come on Friday. It is a working day, the crowds are thin, and the one-off pieces are still on the shelves. Saturday fills with families. Sunday closes at four, and by Sunday afternoon the busier makers have sold through. The clearer your idea of what you want, the more it pays to come early in the run.

About the name KYOPO

With the 50th edition, the Kiyomizu-yaki no Sato Matsuri becomes KYOPO, short for Kyoto Pottery Expo.

The Kiyomizu Ware Complex is a town built by potters. In the 1960s the kilns that had worked in central Kyoto could no longer put smoke over the city, and the makers moved out to the hills of Yamashina. The fair began as the one day a year the complex opened itself to everyone else.

The name has changed; the place and the work have not. The people who own the workshops here stand behind their own tables. That is the character of this fair. Ask about a clay or a glaze and you are asking the person who fired it.

Getting there

The site is Kawata Kiyomizuyaki Danchi-cho, Yamashina Ward, Kyoto. The whole complex becomes the fairground.

The one thing to fix in your mind before you set out is that there is no parking. The surrounding streets are houses and workshops, with no room to leave a car. The shuttle from Kyoto Station is the practical way in. Bus enquiries are taken on 075-581-7189.

Twenty minutes from Kyoto Station is unusual for a pottery fair. Choose pieces in the morning and walk the city in the afternoon, or do Higashiyama first and come up to Yamashina at midday. You do not have to give the whole day to it, and that is what makes this one easy to travel for.

Kyo ware and Kiyomizu ware

Kyo ware and Kiyomizu ware do not name a single clay or a single technique. They name everything made in Kyoto.

The reason lies in the ground. Kyoto has no great clay deposit of the kind Shigaraki or Arita sits on. So Kyoto potters brought clay in from elsewhere and made whatever was ordered: tea bowls for the tea ceremony, tableware for court families, offering plates for temples. The range of customers produced the range of techniques.

What came of it is a region known above all for the fineness of its painting, and for uwa-etsuke, overglaze enamel. A pattern in red and gold is painted on top of the fired glaze, then fixed in a second, cooler firing. That laborious process was refined in Kyoto because Kyoto had the buyers for it.

At KYOPO the tables carry both the direct inheritance of that tradition and work that is entirely contemporary. The breadth of the region is the view down the street. There is more in Kyo ware and Kiyomizu ware.

How to work the fair

• 1. Walk the whole complex first　Walk it once without buying. The site runs the length of the complex, and taking it end to end means running out of attention halfway.
• 2. Decide on the spot, not on the way back　A one-off piece is not there when you return. If something stops you on that first lap, buying it then is what you will regret least.
• 3. Ask about the clay and the glaze　The person at the table usually made what is on it. Which clay, how it was fired. You will remember the answer every time you use the piece at home.
• 4. Turn it over　The kodai, the foot ring, shows how carefully the piece was trimmed. Kyoto work pulls the eye to the painting, but the maker's hand shows underneath.

What to bring

• Cash　Outdoor booths are often cash only.
• A backpack　You will be walking the complex. Free hands make it easier to pick things up.
• Newspaper or a towel　Painted pieces chip at the rim. Booths will wrap for you, but sometimes lightly.
• Shoes you can walk in　Yamashina sits on a hill and there are slopes inside the complex.
• A layer　Mid-October mornings and evenings in Kyoto are cold, and the gap from midday is wide.

Related reading

Kyoto ceramics

• Kyo Ware and Kiyomizu Ware: Kyoto's Refined Ceramics
• Kyoto Pottery: Where to Buy Ceramics in Kyoto
• Uwa-etsuke: How Overglaze Enamel Painting Works
• Pottery Classes in Japan: Where to Try the Wheel

Nearby regions

• Shigaraki Ware: Why Its Clay Sparkles After 1,200 Years
• Tamba Ware Guide: Japan's 800-Year Ash-Glazed Pottery

Before you go to a pottery fair

• Pottery Fair Calendar
• How to Visit a Japanese Pottery Fair: 9 Regions Compared
• Pottery Classes in Japan: Where to Try the Wheel
• Kodai (Foot Ring): The Part Collectors Check First