Jinju City Conducts Final Checks for Three Major Autumn Festivals in October

Jinju Namgang Yudeung Lantern Festival, Gaecheon Art Festival, and Korea Drama Festival to be Held in Succession

Lantern Festival Sets Target of 10,000 International Visitors... Four-Language Integrated Platform to Be Operated

Integrated Control Center in Place, Joint Public-Private Price Monitoring... 'One-Strike Out' Policy for Unfair Practices

Jinju City in Gyeongnam has conducted a review of its preparations in various areas such as safety, traffic, and visitor convenience ahead of the three major autumn festivals scheduled for this October: the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Lantern Festival, the Gaecheon Art Festival, and the Korea Drama Festival.

The city announced that on the 23rd, it held the "2026 October Festival Departmental Progress Report Meeting" at the City Hall Citizen Hall, with over 60 participants including officials from related organizations, groups, and public servants, in attendance.

On the 23rd, Jinju City held the 'Departmental Progress Report Meeting for the October 2026 Festival' at the City Hall Citizen Hall with more than 60 participants, including officials from related organizations, groups, and civil servants. They are checking the preparation status in areas such as safety, traffic, and visitor convenience for the three major autumn festivals.

At the meeting, the city reviewed the progress of each department’s plans in areas such as festival programs, safety management, traffic measures, visitor convenience facilities, publicity, and responses for international tourists.

This year, the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Lantern Festival was selected as a "global festival" by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization. In March, the Ministry selected the Jinju Lantern Festival, along with the Boryeong Mud Festival and the Andong International Mask Dance Festival, as global festivals.

Taking this as an opportunity, Jinju City has set its goal to attract 10,000 international tourists to this year’s Lantern Festival and plans to expand its guidance systems for international visitors.

Firstly, the city will operate an integrated multilingual platform—Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese—providing information about the event venue based on mobile GPS.

The city will also set up three specialized information centers for international visitors and deploy a total of 23 interpreters at these centers and key venues.

The scale of the lantern exhibits will also be expanded. The number of floating lanterns to be installed on the Namgang River will be increased from 135 sets to 165 sets, and the number of land-based lanterns will be raised from approximately 1,000 to around 1,200. Additionally, 186 newly produced lanterns will be installed throughout the venue.

Interactive content using information and communication technology (ICT) will also be introduced.

At the Jinju Battle History Park, artificial intelligence (AI) interactive lanterns featuring Jinju’s tourism characters "Hamo" and "Ayo" with multilingual voice recognition and motion response capabilities will be installed.

The festival will also run interactive experiences such as projection mapping, which recognizes visitors’ motions with sensors, and a program where wish messages are displayed as holograms.

Furthermore, two large lantern artworks, specially invited from the Singapore light festival "i Light Singapore," will be exhibited.

The 75th Gaecheon Art Festival will expand the hosting areas of some preliminary rounds to regions outside Jinju.

The preliminary round of the national poetry recitation contest in the literature category will be held in Busan, the national calligraphy preliminaries in Suncheon, Jeonnam, and the Namgaram Song Festival preliminaries in the entertainment category in Namwon, Jeonbuk.

This year’s parade competition will feature an added public institution character parade segment.

For the folk market, considering safety and the movement of visitors, the number of booths will be reduced from 126 to 119, and the space for amusement facilities will be expanded. There will also be food trucks and a dedicated food zone in the food area.

During the 2026 Korea Drama Festival (KDF), the city plans to promote programs such as producing short-form dramas set in Jinju using AI production tools and international actors, and releasing the content online.

Along with the Korea Drama Awards, a KDF concert featuring singers will also be held. Outdoor sets and exhibitions of major works related to dramas will also be operated.

[Photo provided by Jinju City] Jinju Mayor Kyu-Il Cho is speaking on the preparations for safety, traffic, and visitor convenience in the three major autumn festivals and related countermeasures at the "2026 October Festival Departmental Progress Report Meeting" held on the 23rd at the Citizen Hall of the City Hall.

During the festival period, comprehensive safety management as well as measures for traffic, sanitation, and consumer price control will also be implemented.

Jinju City plans to operate an integrated control center for the three festivals and establish a cooperative response system with related entities such as the police, fire department, and medical institutions to handle emergencies.

Food and beverage booths will be guided to use multilingual menus for international tourists, and checks will be conducted on price, weight, and country of origin labeling.

In particular, to prevent unfair pricing at the festival, a joint public-private price inspection team will be operated. If any unfair practices are found, a "one-strike out" policy will be applied to those vendors.

At the meeting, Mayor Kyuil Cho asked relevant departments to review their preparations once more to ensure that there are no issues with safety management or visitor convenience.

This year’s Jinju festivals in October will begin with the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Lantern Festival on October 3. The 75th Gaecheon Art Festival and the Korea Drama Festival will open on October 9, and all three major festivals will continue around the Namgang River and Jinju Fortress area through October 18.

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