No.60 45th Anniversary of City Administration Implementation 15th Iinagi City Citizen Festival

In the past, city-wide events such as the Industrial Festival and the Citizen Cultural Festival were held separately at different times. On the other hand, starting in 1990, in conjunction with the beginning of occupancy in the Tama New Town area, an event called Garden City Tama was held at Shiroyama Park (Koyodai) under the leadership of UR and Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
The cancellation of Garden City Tama after the 10th event prompted the organization of a Citizen Study Group in 1999 to discuss the nature of the citizen festival.
As a result, taking into account opinions such as the significant role the festival plays as a new place for interaction between new and old residents, the "1st Friendship Festival" was held at Shiroyama Park in May 2001. Subsequently, based on opinions from various departments, it was held jointly at Central Park in October 2002 as the "1st I-nagi Citizen Festival," and it has continued to this day, marking its 15th occurrence this year.
This time, we were able to hold the "Fun Singing the Ninth Choir 2016 Concert" on October 2 as part of the Citizen Festival Friendship Festival section. This year marks the third year of the Ninth concert, and by positioning it as a Citizen Festival concert, it will continue to be held in the future.

In addition, the number of participants in the Wadaiko (Japanese drum) contest has been increasing year by year. Due to the limited number of groups that can perform on the day of the event, we held it on a separate date, October 10, 2016, and expanded the number of categories from one to three. In the "Elementary School Club Activities" category, six groups participated, with the Kozaura Wadaiko team from Setagaya Ward's Higashifukasawa Elementary School winning first place. In the "Youth" category, four groups participated, and Seitoku Gakuen Junior and Senior High School won first place. In the "General" category, five groups participated, and Inagi's Koyuu won first place, performing on the day of the citizen festival.
By allowing open participation not only from within Inagi City, we hope to foster competition with strong teams, which will ultimately lead to an improvement in the level of Wadaiko in Inagi. Let's all work together to ensure that Wadaiko is recognized as part of Inagi.
Furthermore, on November 5 and 6, 2016, the stage category was held at i Plaza Hall. Including this, the citizen festival has grown into a large event lasting about a month.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Inagi City becoming a city from a town. Although we kept the commemorative projects modest as we approach the 50th anniversary, we announced the "Establishment of the City Bird" at the opening ceremony of the citizen festival.
The city bird was selected from eight candidate species chosen by a citizens' meeting of ten people, and a public vote was held from August 15 to September 15, 2016. The result was that the "Chougenbou" received approximately 24 percent of the total 1,148 votes, with 281 votes. It is a symbolic bird that represents the richness of Inagi City's ecosystem, and there have been no similar selections in neighboring cities, making it a good choice that demonstrates Inagi's originality.
The citizen festival has seen an increase in the number of visitors year by year, growing into an important project that contributes to the revitalization of the town. Moving forward, we will continue to strive to make it a festival that brings joy to even more customers as an event for citizens organized by the citizens' executive committee.