Sapporo White Illumination: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Sapporo)

Three sites on one grid

The lights follow Sapporo’s street grid. The festival covers three sites in central Sapporo, and you can walk between all of them.

• Odori Park: the large displays, lit November 20 to December 25, 2026
• Ekimae-dori: the avenue running south from Sapporo Station to Odori, lit late November through February
• Minami 1-jo: the street one block south of the park, lit on the same schedule as Ekimae-dori

The festival’s full run ends on March 14, 2027. The event began in 1981 and is often described as Japan’s first illumination festival. Darkness falls before 4:30pm in December, so the lights are on for most of a winter evening.

Odori Park before Christmas

Odori has the shortest window and the most to see. The park is a long east-west strip of lawns split into numbered blocks, with Sapporo TV Tower at its eastern end. The displays sit block by block, so you see a series of separate light installations as you walk.

Its lights finish on December 25. After that the park is cleared for the Sapporo Snow Festival, held there in February. For most of the Odori run, the park also usually hosts the Munich Christmas Market. Its wooden stalls sell mulled wine, sausages and ornaments, so many visitors do both in one evening.

Moving between the lights

The subway and underground walkways do most of the work. Odori Station, on the Namboku, Tozai and Toho lines, opens directly under the park. Sapporo Station has JR lines plus the Namboku and Toho subway lines.

Chi-Ka-Ho, the heated pedestrian walkway under Ekimae-dori, links the two stations underground in about 15 minutes. Aurora Town runs east beneath Odori toward the TV Tower. Pole Town continues south toward Susukino. Minami 1-jo meets the Tanuki Koji covered shopping arcade, which makes a sheltered detour. JR rapid trains reach Sapporo Station from New Chitose Airport in roughly 40 minutes.

Walking Sapporo’s lights in deep winter

There’s no gate and no queue. You step onto the pavement and start walking. A loop of all three sites usually takes about an hour, longer if you stop at the Christmas market.

• Footing: packed snow and ice cover the pavements. Locals wear boots with grip soles. Slip-on shoe grips are sold around the city.
• Warming up: people walk a few blocks above ground, then go down into Chi-Ka-Ho or Aurora Town to warm their hands.
• Photos: the paths through Odori are narrow between the displays. Photographers usually step to the side rather than stand in the flow of people, and tripods are awkward when it’s crowded.
• Height: the TV Tower observation deck looks straight down the park. Its hours change through the year and are posted on its official site.

Evenings close to Christmas, especially weekends, are when Odori gets busiest, because the market and the lights overlap then. Weeknights earlier in the run are usually easier going. In January and February, the street sites are generally less busy than Odori is in December. The organiser’s official site lists the dates and site layout.