Setouchi Triennale 2028: Dates, Venues & How to Plan Your Naoshima Trip
If you’re searching for this now, you’re not too early — you’re exactly on time. The Setouchi Triennale 2028 is still more than a year and a half away, but the organizers have already locked in the one thing that matters most for planning a trip: the dates and the venue list. Here’s what’s actually confirmed as of today, what’s still up in the air, and where Naoshima fits into it.
When Is the Setouchi Triennale 2028?
The festival runs across three separate seasons rather than one continuous stretch, totaling 117 days with one rest day built into each week:
| Season | Dates | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | April 14 (Fri) – May 28 (Sun), 2028 | 45 days |
| Summer | July 25 (Tue) – August 20 (Sun), 2028 | 27 days |
| Fall | September 29 (Fri) – November 12 (Sun), 2028 | 45 days |
This three-season structure is standard for the Triennale — it’s designed so you can experience the islands in different weather and light, not just once.
Where: Naoshima’s Place Among 17 Venues
Officially, 17 islands and mainland areas will take part, but they’re not all open the whole time. Naoshima is one of just 9 areas confirmed to run across all three seasons — spring, summer, and fall — alongside Teshima, Megijima, Ogijima, Shodoshima, Oshima, Inujima, and the Takamatsu and Uno port areas.
The other 8 venues are season-limited: the Seto Ohashi Bridge area, and the Shido/Tsuda and Hiketa areas, are spring-only, while Honjima, Takamijima, Awashima, Ibukijima, and the Utazu area are fall-only. If Naoshima is your base, that’s genuinely good news — you’re not locked into a narrow window the way visitors chasing a spring- or fall-only island are.
Finding Naoshima Note: If you’ve read our other Setouchi Triennale articles and noticed they’re written around the 2025 edition, that’s because they are — the 2025 Triennale has already come and gone. This page is specifically about the confirmed 2028 edition, and we’ll keep it updated as more details are released. For background on what the Triennale is and how it’s shaped Naoshima over the years, our general guide to the festival and its history are still fully relevant.
What’s Confirmed So Far — and What Isn’t Yet
To be upfront about where things stand: the dates and venue list above come directly from the festival’s official announcement, so you can plan around them with confidence. What hasn’t been announced yet is everything downstream of that — passport (ticket) pricing and on-sale dates, and which specific artists and artworks will appear at which venues.
That’s not unusual this far out. The organizers opened their call for artist proposals for the 2028 edition on October 1, 2026, running through October 30, 2026 — which tells you the artist lineup itself is still being decided. We’ll update this page with passport pricing and artwork details as soon as they’re officially released, rather than guess in the meantime.
Why It’s Worth Planning Naoshima Accommodation Early
Even without ticket prices yet, there’s one thing worth acting on now: Naoshima’s lodging supply is small and doesn’t expand for the festival. Past Triennale editions have consistently seen island accommodation book out well ahead of each season, particularly for the opening weeks, simply because there are only so many rooms on a small island competing with a large seasonal surge in visitors. If a 2028 Triennale trip is on your radar, treating hotel or guesthouse research as a “the earlier, the better” task — rather than something to sort out once passports go on sale — is the more reliable approach.
How to Stay Updated
Passport pricing, the artist lineup, and any venue changes will all come from the festival’s own channels first. The official Setouchi Triennale website is the primary source, with an English-language section, and their Instagram account tends to post announcements as they happen. We’ll fold confirmed updates into this page as they’re released.
If you’d rather not track festival announcements, passport logistics, and island ferry schedules yourself once the 2028 season approaches, working with a guided Naoshima tour is one way to have that planning handled for you closer to the date.