"Illegal Mats" Left Scattered Across Hangang Park... The Bitter Aftermath of a Fireworks Festival That Drew a Million Visitors

Abandoned Tents and Mats Litter Park After Festival
Clear Limitations Under Performance and River Acts
"Legal and Institutional Loopholes Must Be Addressed"

Around 8 a.m. on September 6, the day after the “2026 Seoul International Fireworks Festival,” which illuminated the night sky with brilliant fireworks, only a bitter scene remained in Yeouido Hangang Park, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. Although sanitation workers had been deployed since early dawn to clear major walkways of trash, on park trails, tents with only the belongings removed and piles of mats left stacked in corners could still be found scattered throughout the grounds.

On the morning of the 6th, dozens of mats are stacked inside a tent around Yeouido Hangang Park in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. A "Notice of Warning for Illegal Riverbed Occupation" is posted on the front of the tent. Photo by Jaehyun Park

Notices and banners announcing crackdowns on illegal street vendor operations hung along the Hangang Park trails, but had little effect. "Notice of Warning for Illegal Riverbed Occupation" was affixed to the front of some tents, and during the reporter’s visit, one tent owner was observed quietly packing up and leaving. These are traces of the illegal sale of spots—occupying public spaces for commercial gain and reselling them.

Citizens who visited the Han River after the festival expressed regret. Mr. Kwak (age 42) from Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, remarked, "It’s inappropriate to sell public space for private commercial interests," and stressed, "The harm falls entirely on other citizens who have come to enjoy the fireworks." A nearby resident, Ms. Lee (age 38), commented, "Selling spots isn’t something that can be justified by common sense," but added with resignation, "It seems still difficult to completely prevent those exploiting such niche markets by force."

Illegal transactions and unauthorized occupation of prime spots at large-scale events held in free public spaces continue unabated. Due to limitations of the current law, it is essentially impossible to impose penalties, leading to calls for more effective legal and institutional measures.

On the morning of the 6th, tents left unattended with mats piled up were placed around Yeouido Hangang Park in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jaehyun Park

According to police estimates, the 2026 Seoul International Fireworks Festival, held across the Yeouido area of Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, attracted a crowd of 530,000 people. This event, marking its 22nd year since its inception in 2000, saw 4,600 police officers deployed across Seoul for two days starting September 4. The organizer, Hanwha, also deployed about 5,000 safety management and order maintenance personnel, including employee volunteer corps members.

The most heated controversy during this year’s fireworks festival centered on securing prime spots and illegal transactions surrounding this practice. Even before the event, posts on online secondhand marketplaces and social networking services (SNS) offered “prime spot for sale,” “selling mats for the fireworks festival,” and “prime parking tickets for sale,” with markups running into hundreds of thousands of won. While the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced plans to collect mats en masse and sent official requests to platforms to restrict such posts, these efforts were insufficient to curtail these irregular sales.

The core issue lies in the difficulty of punishing or regulating such transactions and unauthorized occupation under current law. Revised performing arts and national sports promotion acts, which ban the sale of scalped tickets, have been in force since August 28. However, the Yeouido fireworks festival does not fall under the category of "performances" defined by the performing arts act; the event is held in a public space open for free, and no tickets are issued for securing spots. Thus, anti-scalping laws cannot be applied. Likewise, reselling hotel accommodation vouchers is also not regulated under performing arts legislation.

On the morning of the 6th, notices stating "Illegal street vendor operations are being regulated" were posted in various locations around Yeouido Hangang Park in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jaehyun Park

Field enforcement also has clear limitations due to the ambiguity of legal standards. Under the River Act, unauthorized sales and occupation are prohibited within Hangang Park, but since public areas are open 24 hours, there are no clear criteria for defining one or two days’ use of mats or tents as unauthorized occupation. In addition, to prove unauthorized commercial activity, law enforcers must catch actual monetary transactions—such as direct bank transfers or cash exchanges—on site in order for punishment to be possible.

A Seoul Metropolitan Government official said, "There are measures to impose fines for unauthorized commercial activities such as selling spots for money in Hangang Park, but detection is nearly impossible. In the end, aside from posting banners and appealing to people's conscience through awareness campaigns, there are no effective enforcement tools." A Han River security guard met on site explained, "Because these are personal belongings, we cannot immediately remove them without permission; instead, we attach a warning notice and take photos as a preliminary measure."

Experts point out that legal and institutional loopholes must be addressed to prevent unauthorized commercial activities in public places. Lee Eunhee, professor emeritus of consumer studies at Inha University, emphasized, "Under current performing arts law, anti-scalping regulations are limited to events with ticket issuance, and the misdemeanor law is focused on offline activity, so there are substantial legal blind spots. It is essential to create local ordinances through municipal governments to establish grounds for crackdowns and explore more effective preventive measures."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.