Lee Sangil: "Bringing Culture and the Arts to the Semiconductor Megacluster"... "Cultural City Yongin" Gambit

Yongin Mayor Lee Sangil personally plans "Autumn Starlight Plaza"
Local popular artists take the stage... Citizen festival planning group "Crayongin" launched
Kim Mihwa, Ha Namseok, and Kim Wansun take the stage... Over 1,000 residents gather despite autumn rain
Mayor Lee: "Culture and the arts enrich our lives; we will create them together with citizens"

"Yongin is leaping forward as a central city with the world's largest semiconductor ecosystem through a mega-scale semiconductor project, but ultimately, it is culture and the arts that enrich citizens' lives."

Yongin Special City Mayor Lee Sang-il delivers remarks at the "2026 Yongin Citizens Popular Artists Special Autumn Starlight Plaza," held at Poeun Art Hall on the evening of the 14th. Photo provided by Yongin City.

Lee Sangil, mayor of Yongin Special City in Gyeonggi Province, made the remarks while attending “2026 Yongin Citizens’ Popular Artists Special: Autumn Starlight Plaza,” held at Poeun Art Hall on the evening of November 14. “We will create more diverse and enriching cultural and arts events and share them with our citizens,” he said. Lee emphasized that Yongin is advancing as a global semiconductor hub and highlighted the role of culture and the arts in enriching citizens’ daily lives.

Autumn Starlight Plaza is an evening fall concert featuring popular artists who live in Yongin. Because of rain that day, the performance was moved from an outdoor plaza to Poeun Art Hall. About 1,000 residents attended.

The event took on added significance because Mayor Lee came up with the idea and planned it himself, with the aim of giving local popular artists living in Yongin a stage of their own.

In his congratulatory remarks, Mayor Lee said, “I planned today’s festival not as the mayor, but as a citizen,” adding, “Since Yongin is home to many outstanding cultural and arts professionals, I wanted to create a stage where local artists could take the spotlight, rather than inviting performers from other places.”

He continued, “I am deeply grateful to the residents who joined us despite the bad weather and rain. We will continue to organize diverse cultural and arts events and connect with our citizens.”

The event, hosted by broadcaster Kim Mi-hwa, a goodwill ambassador for Yongin City, opened with the launch ceremony for “Crayongin,” a citizen festival planning group marking the start of a citizen-led cultural and arts ecosystem.

A combination of “Creative Yongin” and “people” (in), “Crayongin” is an integrated organization bringing together citizen planners who have worked independently in their respective fields. Members joined forces, including the “Joayong Parade Team,” which has led street festivals; planners of “OO’s Imagination Becomes Reality,” which has turned residents’ everyday lives into cultural content since 2022; and young planners focused on community culture.

At the launch ceremony, the AinSbaum arts troupe of performers with developmental disabilities, the Yongin Model Contents Association, and the Yongin branch of the Korean Traditional Music Promotion Association took the stage for congratulatory performances, cheering on the planning group as it took its first steps.

For the main performance, popular artists based in Yongin took center stage. Ha Nam-seok, a folk singer and goodwill ambassador for the city, opened with his signature song “Woman Who Left at Night.” Singer Kim Wan-sun then took the stage and performed hit songs one after another, including “That Dance in the Rhythm” and “Pierrot Smiles at Us,” drawing enthusiastic applause and cheers from the audience.

A ceremony announcing the launch of “Keureyongin,” the citizen festival planning group, is held at the “2026 Yongin Citizens’ Popular Arts Special: Autumn Starlight Plaza” at Poeun Art Hall in Yongin on the evening of the 14th. Provided by Yongin City.

A Yongin City official said, “This was a true citizens’ festival, moving away from one-way, government-led performances, with citizens planning the event and local artists filling the stage. We will continue to develop distinctive cultural content unique to Yongin, centered on the newly launched ‘Crayongin.’”

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