The lively atmosphere of the festival is the very ideal of Kirishima Shuzo.

The festival's vibrant energy embodies the very ideal of Kirishima Shuzo.
Where food gathers, people gather. The history and future of the Kirishima Festival — a celebration of gratitude to the local community.

A man enjoying a sip of shochu, a woman looking forward to the food stalls that are set up every year, and children excited by the stage shows. The Kirishima Autumn Festival, filled with smiles from people of all ages and genders, was held for the first time in four years in November 2023.
Kirishima Shuzo holds the Kirishima Festival twice a year, in spring and autumn, at the Shochu no Sato Kirishima Factory Garden, where visitors can enjoy food and shochu. This major two-day event attracts nearly 30,000 visitors from inside and outside Miyazaki Prefecture. The Kirishima Festival was forced to be postponed for three years due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but was finally able to resume last autumn.

"The event started at 10 am, but the first parking lot was already full before the opening, and we received a very positive response."
Looking back with a happy look on his face is Tatsuyuki Fukuda from the Planning Department. The Kirishima Festival is an event that is being organized by an executive committee made up of employees from across departments at Kirishima Shuzo, and it is the Planning Department that is taking the lead. Fukuda has been involved since the event was first launched in 2000.

It started as a sub-venue for an event hosted by Miyazaki Prefecture, and initially only served shochu and beer, and was less than half the size it is today.
"In 2002, Kirishima Shuzo started hosting the festival independently. Back then, the Planning Department had only about six members. With few visitors and a sparse atmosphere, we racked our brains over how to attract more people."
To make a festival exciting, a major attraction was needed to draw people in. This is how food-centered event concepts such as the "Delicious Food Market" were born.
"Kirishima Shuzo has a basic stance that 'Shochu culture is rooted in food culture,' and we want to cherish food culture so that people can enjoy shochu together with delicious food. Projects such as 'Delicious Food is Delicious' and 'With the taste of Kyushu' are part of this effort, and we have long fostered communication through food. We wanted to make the Kirishima Festival something that would convey that same passion to our customers."

First, they called for cooperation from restaurants that had supported them in their "Delicious Food is Delicious" program, which interviews local Miyazaki food and local producers and introduces them through newspaper ads and other means. As a result, nearly 30 restaurants came together. At the time, it was rare for an event to bring together so many restaurants in Miyazaki Prefecture, and the reaction from local customers was positive.
"I remember well that in the early days of the Kirishima Festival, I would visit the stores that had stalls at the festival and take pictures of the soft serve ice cream myself, camera in hand. At the time, even the flyers and guide signs were handmade, and looking back, they were rather clumsy, but I worked hard at trial and error to make sure that the stores and customers who had stalls could enjoy themselves."

Fukuda's tone was permeated with nostalgia and pride as he spoke. After that, with the expansion of events such as "With the taste of Kyushu" and "Takumi no Kura," which introduced the culture of various parts of Kyushu, the number of stalls selling local specialties from each prefecture in Kyushu also increased. This drew large crowds seeking items rarely seen or tasted elsewhere.
The Kirishima Festival is also a place where all employees come together to show their hospitality and express their gratitude to customers. Each employee interacts with customers by selling shochu, guiding them around the venue, and picking up trash. With the desire to please customers, the festival has grown to a scale that attracts approximately 30,000 visitors over two days, as a result of repeated trial and error every year.

That's why the Kirishima Autumn Festival, held for the first time in four years after overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, was a much-anticipated event for Kirishima Shuzo employees.
Mizuki Kojima from the Planning Department, who served as the overall leader for the Kirishima Autumn Festival, was in his fourth year at the company at the time. It was a major role he took on without having ever experienced the festival as an employee himself.
"Employees who joined the company after 2020 are a generation that was unable to experience many events such as school festivals during their student days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I wanted young employees, including myself, to have the experience of succeeding by working together to achieve something. I also thought that because we had no experience of festivals before the COVID-19 pandemic, we could come up with fresh ideas and thoughts, so although there was a lot of pressure, I decided to run for leader."
Kojima believed that customer expectations and needs had changed since the COVID-19 pandemic, so he visited various events across Kyushu to conduct research. The answer he arrived at was providing "experiences."

"The concept of conveying Kyushu’s Food Culture remains the same as before, but now that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased use of online shopping and delivery services and other forms of non-face-to-face interaction, we have placed a new emphasis on the 'experiences that can only be felt face-to-face,' 'that can only be experienced here.'"
They conducted a survey within the company, collaborated with companies they had connections with, and set up experience booths like workshops that leveraged each partner's strengths. This initiative proved highly successful, with collaborating companies also expressing delight at gaining a valuable opportunity to interact directly with local people.

Sharing the wonder of food culture and the deepest gratitude with the local community.
The Kirishima Festival is a special occasion where they can look customers in the eye and directly convey the feelings they wish to share through their products every day. Kirishima Shuzo's commitment to this event is strong and deep.