Kanda Myojin has guarded Edo since 730, and in 2018 it acquired its own event complex. It is the tutelary shrine of what is now central Tokyo, it carried the faith of shoguns and townspeople alike for more than a thousand years, and it reaches its 1,300th year in 2029. EDOCCO, built inside the precinct, holds a performance room and studio below ground, Kanda Myojin Hall for large events on the second floor, a VIP lounge on the third, and the ritual hall and a roof garden on the fourth. A reception can therefore keep the bearing of a sacred place and still meet the specification of a modern banquet.
The high point is a formality that works nowhere but Tokyo. At one welcome reception for about 110 overseas guests, a rikishi performed the dohyo-iri, the ring-entering ceremony of the top rank, as the lead of the night. Nothing was dropped into the banquet for effect; the guests could see exactly what they had been received into — the shrine that has held Edo for a thousand years.
EDOCCO answers the wish for Japanese formality and group capacity in one room. The rites and the ground are real, and a hundred overseas guests still fit. Akihabara and Kanda are a short walk away, so none of this is remote. Guests leave with the standing of a formal welcome from the guardian shrine of Edo.