The Akatsuka Ume-matsuri (赤塚梅まつり) is a festival held at Akatsuka Tameike Park in Itabashi-ku, Tokyo in early March. "Akatsuka" is the name of the area, "ume" is Japanese apricot, and "matsuri" means festival, so it's a plum blossom viewing event.
Akatsuka Tameike Park is a park in the suburbs of Tokyo with two small municipal museums, one on art and another for history. It is a 13-minute walk from Nishi-Takashimadaira Station, the terminus of the Toei Mita Line. In this district, there are temples like Akatsuka Suwa Shrine, Shogetsuin Temple and Jorenji Temple, also. See the article on the Akatsuka area for details.

Akatsuka Ume-matsuri

The main events of the Akatsuka Ume-matsuri are a procession of children clad in hand-made armours on Saturday and martial arts demonstrations on Sunday.
Other than these, stage performances will be held as well.

There's an old farm house relocated in the backyard of the history museum (admission free.) There, concerts of "so", a kind of tradtional instrument, will be performed on both days.

Stage performances

Stage performances by locals are performed through out the two days.

Procession of armour-clad kids

In Saturday afternoon, children clad in handmade cardbord armours parade through the park.

Matchlocks are fired in the end.

Matial arts demonstrations

On Sunday, several martial arts demonstrations will be performed. One of them is Western-style gun-firing which was introduced to Japan in the late Edo period (19th century.)