CASE STUDY
Shibuya Nightlife Guide
Shibuya, Tokyo2025–
Q.
How can visitors from abroad find the hottest night in Shibuya, tonight?
Redevelopment in Shibuya has pushed up land prices and squeezed out floor space. The district draws overwhelming numbers of visitors from abroad, yet the independent venues that built Shibuya's own scenes were not getting their information out with any force. With the Shibuya City Tourism Association, NEWSKOOL planned and ran measures to help people enjoy Shibuya's night more deeply, using a grant from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau.
A.
We opened a night tourist desk run by young locals, and published a website and map that tell Shibuya's nightlife from the local community's point of view.
How to share a fun that changes every night
In Shibuya, where the fun is changes from one night to the next, and conventional social media ads could not reach the people who needed to know.
So we started from the instincts of young people who actually go out in Shibuya. The watchword: "Local communities are the stars of Shibuya's night." Instead of surface-level tourist information, the stars are the venues, communities and creators who built and grew Shibuya's night.
A map with six ways in
The official Shibuya Nightlife Map lists 45 venues, sorted by six icons — Music, Cocktail, Casual bar, Local Food, Local community and Sober-friendly — so that everyone from first-timers to locals in the know can find their own way in. We added angles to reach people who don't drink and people looking for something more local.
Alongside the tourist information desks, the map explains street drinking and smoking manners and Japan's otoshi table-charge culture in English and Japanese. It works as a PDF or a Google Maps list, and is placed in listed venues and tourist desks.
Three places, chosen by the people of the night
The website offers six style guides to choose by purpose or mood: a first night, music-led nights, cocktails and cozy corners, back-alley bars and local encounters, midnight, and a night without alcohol.
We also asked people who have shaped Shibuya's night — DJ EMMA, Yuki Kawamura, Thir(s)ty One and others — to name the three places that matter most to them.
A night tourist desk that follows the city's events
The pop-up tourist desk Shibuya Nightlife Guide has opened many times, timed to the city's own events: the Omotesando illuminations, DIG Shibuya, the Shibuya Kagoshima Ohara Festival, Shibuya Hashigozake and more. It is staffed by young people who actually go out in Shibuya. They open the map with visitors and recommend where to go that night.
For visitors, it became a way into the city through conversation. And as the desk popped up in different spots, it built relationships with businesses and local players in each area.
Shibuya Nightlife Festival: a map that grows with every vote
In October 2025 we ran Shibuya Nightlife Festival, a walking event across the district. During the festival (7–13 October) the desk stood every night from 6 to 10 pm in front of Shibuya Prime, connected to Shibuya Station, with all day place shibuya and lyf Shibuya Tokyo as satellite points. With the nightlife map in hand, people wandered freely between bars, music venues and unusual spaces.
They could vote by phone for the venues, cocktails and experiences they liked, in five categories: local community, unique venue, signature cocktail, non-alcoholic nightlife and signature dish. The venues with the most votes are featured in later editions of the map and on official social media, so the map grows with the voices of the people who go out. More than 1,000 people took part over the period.
INFO
- Client
- Shibuya City Tourism Association
- Location
- Shibuya, Tokyo
- Dates
- 2025–
- Grant
- Tokyo Metropolitan Government / Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau night-time tourism grant
SCOPE
- Business design
- Planning & communication design
- Operations
CREDIT
- Client
- Shibuya City Tourism Association
- Planning & production
- NEWSKOOL LLC
- Design & fixtures
- Yunosuke Nakamura / TERANISHI / Aki Ito
- Photo & video
- K2 Creative / Yuto Takoshima
- PR
- Tomoya Hyodo / WAKA XINXI / J-Novations Inc.
- Support
- Akito Suzuki / Yuto Shiota and others
