JAPAN TODAY


 

For decades, the Shibuya ward of downtown Tokyo has had an image as a party place. Things are less celebratory these days, though, as after telling people to stay away from the area on Halloween, Shibuya Ward says it’s not going to be doing anything special for New Year’s Eve either.

This wasn’t always the case. Starting in 2016, the world-famous Shibuya Scramble intersection in front of Shibuya Station would be shut down on the night of December 31 and turned into an official street party venue, with appearances by celebrities and vending booths from sponsoring companies. 

By 2018, crowds as large as 120,000 people or so would gather to ring in the new year.

That all came to an end in 2020, though, when Shibuya Ward suspended the New Year’s Eve festivities as part of public health measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Even after such anti-infection protocols were no deemed no longer necessary, though, Shibuya didn’t bring back the New Yar’s Eve party, claiming such a large gathering was now a safety issue.

While there was talk of restarting the celebration this year, an executive committee made up of Shibuya Ward legislators and representatives of the shopping districts near the Shibuya Scramble have now said that the resumption has been postponed to 2025, meaning that there will be no official New Year’s Eve countdown party in Shibuya this year.

A spokesperson for the ward said that with the number of visitors to Shibuya, including foreign tourists, increasing, they have decided not to hold a countdown event in order to ensure public safety.

A ward representative also referenced Shibuya’s new year-round ban on public drinking, saying “As we are currently in the process of trying to reduce public consumption of alcohol, we have arrived at the judgement that this is not an appropriate time to be holding an event at which a large number of people will gather.”

With Shibuya’s year-round public drinking ban being the first of its type in Tokyo, and having just gone into effect last month, maybe there’s hope that after a year of positive results a countdown event really will be held once again in the Scramble in 2025.

It’s starting to look, though, like the Shibuya New Year’s Eve party might wind up becoming a thing of the past entirely.