Shizuoka City has a problem. Mount Fuji is an hour east, a decent beach is an hour west. Outside of green tea and clean air, Shizuoka City itself doesn't have much going for it.
This makes the Daidogei World Cup street performance competition all the more unusual: It just isn't very Shizuoka-like. Nonetheless, for the first four days of each November an amazing transformation takes place: A bizarre army of jugglers, magicians, pantomimes, musicians, conceptual artists and clowns converge from all over the world, and conservative, dowdy, dull Shizuokans call in sick, get drunk in public, throw money around, talk back to the performers and sometimes even perform themselves.
By any measure the Daidogei is a huge event. Last year there were 54 acts doing their performance in 30-minute intervals at 25 locations. Over 1.5 million people attended, three times Shizuoka's actual population.