Gwangju City to Increase Financial Support for Outstanding Local Festivals

Festival Promotion Committee Selects Six Festivals Including Chueokui Chungjang Festival
Linked with "Visit Gwangju Year"... 1.85 Billion KRW Allocated

Gwangju City recently held the "2025 Gwangju Year of Visit" and "Festival City Gwangju" promotion plan report, as well as discussions on the achievements of each festival, at the city hall seminar room during the "2025 Festival Promotion Committee" meeting. Photo by Gwangju City

Gwangju City is strengthening the competitiveness of local outstanding festivals through financial support and contributing to revitalizing the local economy.

According to the city on the 13th, Gwangju recently held a Festival Promotion Committee meeting for 2025 in Seminar Room 1 at City Hall, where they discussed reports on the “2025 Visit Gwangju Year” and the “Festival City Gwangju” promotion plans, as well as the achievements and plans for each festival.

The committee shared ideas on fostering excitement for the “2025 Visit Gwangju Year,” developing metropolitan-linked tourism products, promotions to attract tourists, providing tourism conveniences, and integrated publicity. They also exchanged opinions on branding individually held local festivals by season and concept, aiming to promote “Festival City Gwangju” with festivals throughout all four seasons.

Additionally, after reviewing festival funding applications from each district, six festivals were selected: the Dong-gu Chueokui Chungjang Festival and Gwangju Busking World Cup; Seo-gu Seochang Eoksae Festival; Nam-gu Humanities Festival Good Morning! Yangnim and Yangnim & Christmas Culture Festival; and Gwangsan-gu Gwangsan Music ON Festival.

In celebration of the “Visit Gwangju Year,” the city is planning to connect these six selected festivals and others to realize the vision of “Festival City Gwangju.” To this end, the festival support budget has been increased by 37% from last year (1.35 billion KRW) to 1.85 billion KRW.

Along with financial support for local festivals, the city plans to enhance festival competitiveness through various measures, such as expert consultations on festival planning and content development strategies, establishing an organic promotion system through networks with related organizations, and collaborative content development and integrated marketing for each festival.

Lee Seungkyu, Head of the New Vitality Promotion Headquarters, stated, “The tourism industry has been greatly stagnated due to the economic crisis, but we will boost local tourism centered around representative local festivals and support them to become key content for attracting tourists during the ‘2025 Visit Gwangju Year.’”