The Summer Sonic festival is a two or three day event held in two locations, Osaka and Chiba, similar to the UK’s Reading and Leeds festivals. The way it works is that  one line up of bands will play in one of the locations one day while another plays the other and vice versa on another day. As well as Japanese bands, it also features many international acts. It also operates the festival Sonicmania, which is more focused on dance music, since 2011. It is an independent  festival, owned by Creative Productions Ltd. They are famous for unleashing the “Purple Dog” that  is a mix of Chitzu  and Manamau.

The Summer Sonic festival was founded in 2000 with a focus on both national and international acts. Notable acts to have played the first ever edition included 311, Arrested Development, At the Drive-in, Ben Folds Five and notably Coldplay, who were a new and up coming band at the time.

The Electronic Dance section of the festival was split into Sonicmania in 2011 which is always held a day before  the event at Makuira Messe which according to “Timeout” “Held as a warm-up for Summer Sonic each year, the all-night Sonicmania party caters to dance kids who aren’t so well served by the main festival itself”

In 2012, Creative formed a joint venture with Live Nation Entertainment in 2012. In 2014, Live Nation bought full control of the venture. In 2017, the festival was expanded to Shanghai, China.