Music Event Aims to Revitalize COVID-hit Tokyo Drinking District

A one-night music competition can be held Thursday to assist revitalize Shinjuku Golden Gai within the Kabukicho district, one in every of Tokyo’s hottest consuming and consuming districts.

The occasion can be staged at Kinokuniya Corridor in Shinjuku Ward, and bar and restaurant house owners within the space are hopeful the occasion will present a much-needed spur to assist overcome current business-related hardships, together with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and a fireplace in December.

Criticism

Golden Gai, situated in Shinjuku Ward, is believed to have originated as a black market that relocated from an space in entrance of Shinjuku Station instantly after the tip of World Conflict II. The neighborhood was incessantly visited by literary giants and stage actors in the course of the Showa period (1926-1989).

At the moment, Golden Gai includes about 290 bars and eating places in wood buildings, constructed within the conventional nagaya row-house type.

One of many space’s sights is the one-off interactions amongst strangers within the small bars and eating places. Previous to the pandemic, most institutions have been crowded with younger individuals and international vacationers, together with quite a few literature and theater followers.

As soon as the pandemic started to take maintain, nonetheless, Kabukicho was frowned upon as a hotbed for the unfold of the novel coronavirus. In keeping with Bunmei Tobayama, president of the Shinjuku Golden Gai Buying District Promotion Affiliation, many institutions have been compelled to shut and the district misplaced a lot of its vitality. The issue was additional compounded by a associated rise in telecommuting, and solely about 70% of consumers have returned, Tobayama defined.

Good alternative

Golden Gai was broken by fireplace on the finish of December. The blaze broke out in an institution subsequent to Tobayama’s and burned a roughly 20-square-meter space. Though nobody was injured, three institutions have been rendered inoperable and a few others have been compelled to shut.

The concept of the music competition emerged thereafter. Amongst these scheduled to carry out are musician Ryudo Uzaki, an acquaintance of Tobayama, and singer-songwriter Hako Yamazaki, a Golden Gai common.

Tobayama, who runs his personal theater firm, will take the stage to speak about what Golden Gai was like in and across the Nineteen Seventies — generally held to be district’s golden age.

“I hope the occasion serves as a possibility for individuals who have by no means visited Golden Gai to get to know the district,” Tobayama, 76, stated.

Tickets for the occasion value ¥7,500 (all seats reserved). For extra data, go to https://goldengai.information/ (in Japanese).