[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] The Incheon Sorae Port Festival, a representative marine ecology festival in the Seoul metropolitan area, will be held as an in-person event for the first time in four years.
Namdong-gu, Incheon announced on the 16th that the 22nd Sorae Port Festival will be held for three days from next month 1st to 3rd around the Sorae Port area.
The Sorae Port Festival was completely canceled in 2019-2020 due to African swine fever and the impact of COVID-19, and last year the festival was held in a greatly reduced scale in a non-face-to-face format.
This year's festival, under the slogan "Soraejilleo," will showcase various programs that highlight the characteristics of Sorae Port, a representative tourist destination in the metropolitan area. It aims to be a festival where residents directly participate and create both online and offline, including cultural experience events using local specialties.
To revitalize the local economy, the festival will not have a food market but will instead link with surrounding commercial districts. The venue will also be expanded to include Sorae Port Haeoreum Square, the traditional fish market, and Sorae Wetland Ecological Park, actively utilizing the Sorae tourism belt centered on Sorae Port.
On the first day of the festival, the 1st, events will begin with a Sorae Port seafood cooking contest, followed by a traditional street parade and the West Coast Bumper Harvest Festival hosted by intangible cultural heritage holders and Kim Hyekyung.
The opening ceremony at 7 p.m. will feature congratulatory performances by singers Hongja, Kim Taeyeon, Kang Hyeyeon, who are former contestants of Miss Trot, along with a spectacular fireworks display.
On the second day, there will be a seafood cooking class with culinary researcher Lee Hyejung, a youth dance festival, the Sorae musical drama "Sorae Village Story," and the Sorae Cinema Concert & film screening.
On the 3rd, a Sorae Karaoke for tourists and the Namdong Love Concert for local artists will be held, and the closing ceremony will feature a video summarizing the three days' events along with congratulatory performances by singers Park Changgeun, Kim Donghyun, and Lee Solomon.
During the event, at the public parking lot in front of Sorae Port Haeoreum Square, tourist experience programs such as crab fishing, barehanded shrimp catching, and children's boat fishing will be conducted.
At Sorae Wetland Ecological Park, the "Sorae Smart Entering" event (mission completion via smartphone) will be held, where participants enjoy various missions to learn more about the ecological park. Participants receive information and missions via smartphone and complete them within a set time; those who finish will receive souvenirs.
Additionally, Haeoreum Square will be transformed into a space full of sights and romance every night with illuminated nightscapes and a poetry and painting exhibition featuring stories of Sorae Port.
Namdong-gu plans to focus on creating the Sorae tourism belt centered on Sorae Port as a key project of the 8th local government term, starting with this festival.
Along with the designation of Sorae Wetland Ecological Park as a national urban garden, the plan is to develop Sorae Port as a hub encompassing water leisure and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions), centered on the waterway from Sorae to the Han River.
Park Jonghyo, mayor of Namdong-gu, said, "I hope the festival, held for the first time in four years, will revive the depressed local economy and provide an opportunity for tourists to newly recognize the value of Sorae Port." He added, "We will continue to promote projects so that Sorae Port can be reborn as a representative tourist destination of the metropolitan area beyond Namdong-gu."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
