The festival's main features are Shinto priests playing musical instruments, a parade of ceremonially garbed participants, all-you-can-drink sake, and a wooden phallus.

[2][3] The festival starts with celebration and preparation at 10:00 a.m. at Tagata Jinja, where all sorts of foods and souvenirs (mostly phallus-shaped or related) are sold.

Shinto priests say prayers and impart blessings on the participants and mikoshi, as well as on the large wooden phallus, which are to be carried along the parade route.

[2][3] The 280 kg (620 pound), 2.5 meter (96 inch)-long, 200–250 year old Japanese cypress wooden phallus called youbutsu (陽物, lit.

Everyone then gathers in the square outside Tagata Shrine and waits for the mochi nage, at which time the crowd is showered with small rice cakes which are thrown down by the officials from raised platforms.