The clock and the ground
The Friends of the Japanese Garden hold a free fall festival at the Ichimura Miami-Japan Garden on Sunday 1 November 2026, from 10:30 am to 4 pm. The garden sits at 1101 MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island, Miami 33139. The park opens at 9 am and closes at 5 pm every day, and admission is free.
Three festivals run each year. The Friends list winter on 1 February, spring on 3 May and fall on 1 November, all in 2026.
The free programme
The notice lists six free items: a Bon-Odori ceremony, a cosplay contest with cash prizes, a sushi making demonstration, Japanese guitar and flute performances, a haiku discussion, and taiko drumming by Fushu Daiko. A martial arts demonstration runs free. Two ikebana workshops run free, 11 am to noon and 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm, in the first tent, and a free reserved ticket holds a place in the session.
Three items carry a charge. The tea ceremony costs $10. The sushi sample plate costs $10. The yukata wearing experience costs $10 for children and $20 for adults across a 15-minute session behind the refreshment tent.
Tea seating caps at 25 ticket holders at 11:15 am and 25 at 1:30 pm. Masks are required during the ceremony.
Fifty tea seats exist across the two seatings. A guest who wants both buys two tickets.
The Saturday-night arithmetic
The festival ends at 4 pm on a Sunday. A guest who travels for it needs the Saturday night of 31 October, and Sunday afternoon closes the visit.
The drive-in comparison prices from the garden's directions page. Park in the Jungle Island garage, use the $5 coupon the park hands out during a festival, and the day costs $15 against the garage's $20. Admission adds nothing. Fuel and tolls sit on top, and the garden publishes neither.
A local household pays $15 for the day before fuel, attends, and drives home. A Saturday rate sits against that $15 figure. The festival publishes no hotel rate, no partner property and no room block.
The arrival script
Four published rules belong in the Sunday handover.
Cash only at the event, with small bills for food and beverage. A guest carrying a card alone reaches the front desk with nothing to spend.
No rainchecks and no refunds. The event runs rain or shine, and the schedule is approximate.
Receipts. The ticket page requires a receipt on the guest's phone at the front desk for any payment made after 11 pm on Saturday. The script asks two questions: did you pay late, and is the receipt on your phone.
Masks at the tea ceremony, at both seatings.
The shift and the room
The morning shift carries the departure. A 10:30 am start against a 9 am park opening puts guests out of the property in the morning, and the 4 pm close brings them back through the lobby before dinner.
One room night, the Saturday. Sunday departures leave the property after the festival closes, and the Sunday night sits outside the trip.
The garden sells vendor space at the gate: $45 inside, $25 for outside entrance spaces 23, 24 and 25, first come first served. Vendors supply their own tent and table, and the spaces carry no electricity. A property that wants presence at the gate prices the booth against a sponsorship line.
What the desk confirms
The garden publishes no attendance figure for 2026, no capacity for the grounds and no visitor count for the fall date. The levers a revenue desk can act on are the clock, the fifty paid tea seats, the single garage, the cash rule and the one-night stay.
Three of those sit in the guest's hands before arrival: cash, the late-payment receipt, and the park's 9 am opening.