Awa Odori — luxury itineraries and concierge.

Awa Odori, from an operator's side.

Awa Odori takes over Tokushima from 12 to 15 August: organised dance troupes, the ren, moving through the city to a two-beat rhythm of shamisen, flute and drum, in both formal grandstand arenas and informal street sections that run late into the night. It is the largest festival of its kind in Japan and, unusually, one an agent can genuinely place a client inside rather than beside. The obstacle is the calendar. These are the Obon dates, when domestic Japan travels en masse and every route onto Shikoku is under load.

• Obon is the heaviest domestic travel week in the Japanese year, so flights, reserved rail seats and rental vehicles all tighten at once and rates move with them.
• Shikoku is a connection, not a destination, for most long-haul itineraries — access runs by air into Tokushima or by road over the bridges from Kobe and Osaka, and both need booking as carefully as the festival itself.
• Tokushima is a provincial city with limited quality accommodation, and the paid grandstand sections that give clients a proper view are ticketed and sold ahead.

Basing decides the file.

Tokushima city is where clients want to be, because the street dancing continues after the ticketed sessions end and the walk back to the hotel is part of the night. The city’s better rooms are few and go early. Naruto and Takamatsu are the realistic alternatives, each within a private transfer, and both are easier to secure — at the cost of leaving before the informal dancing reaches its best hour.

When to start.

Twelve months, and the reason is Obon rather than Awa Odori. Air and rail into Shikoku, the hotels in Tokushima and the grandstand tickets all have to be held in that order, and every one of them competes with domestic demand that books early and does not release. Files started in spring for the same August are rescue jobs.