Takayama Festival - How Busy?

I'm in the middle of working through my itinerary for next years visit.

This may sound a little odd, but we are going to be leaving Takayama (for Kyoto) the day before the Festival starts, can anybody forsee any problems with this? Should we re-jig our dates?

we are going to be leaving Takayama (for Kyoto) the day before the Festival starts, can anybody forsee any problems with this?

In terms of crowds it should be no problem. I don't think it will have much impact. Most people just visit during the festival days.

Thanks again for your advice!

I took a look at the 2014 calendar and noticed that the day before the spring festival (April 13) will fall on a Sunday. The day before the autumn festival falls on a regular weekday.

Considering that the day before the spring festival is a Sunday may make the town somewhat busy naturally. And the upcoming festival may, indeed, contribute to a certain additional increase of visitors. These things are very difficult to predict, but if you hate crowds, you may want to reconsider, after all.

In case you plan to visit the autumn festival, however, I feel that the day before the festival (October 8) won't be particularly crowded.