In Collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency
Over 1,200 Merchandise Items, Including First Releases and Limited Editions, Unveiled at the Pop-up
Lotte Department Store announced on the 16th that it will host the '2025 World Webtoon Festival' in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency.
Visitors attending the '2024 World Webtoon Festival' held last year in Seongsu. Provided by Lotte Department Store.
The 2025 World Webtoon Festival will be the largest webtoon event in Korea, featuring a total of over 200 webtoon intellectual property (IP) titles. This special event offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience webtoons-an art form that Korea has developed into a global genre-in an offline setting.
Building on the success of the first World Webtoon Festival held in Seongsu in September last year, this year's event has been significantly expanded. The festival will take place at 'Lotte Town Jamsil,' Korea's largest integrated theme complex with 50 million annual visitors, and will feature not only official exhibitions and interactive programs but also a large-scale pop-up event, creating a massive webtoon celebration.
The highlight of this year's festival is the 'Lotte World Mall Pop-up,' where visitors can discover merchandise from 35 popular webtoons all at once. From the 16th to the 26th, 11 unique pop-up spaces will be set up across five floors, from B1 to the 4th floor of Lotte World Mall, showcasing more than 1,200 types of IP-themed merchandise. Unlike last year's exhibition-focused festival, this year's event emphasizes differentiated IP merchandise planning.
At the 'Maru is a Puppy' pop-up, based on a popular Naver Webtoon IP, visitors will find over 100 types of merchandise in a bakery cafe setting, as well as special collaboration products with leading brands like Uniqlo, Spao, and Vivien. The 'Lookism' pop-up, which has surpassed 10 billion global views, will feature an arcade game theme and unveil 90 new products for the first time, with a total of 700 merchandise items on display.
The 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' pop-up will introduce a food and beverage concept for the first time, offering specially curated snacks, drinks, and tumblers. The 'How to Hide the Emperor's Child' pop-up will present 30 types of merchandise, including exclusive packages such as posters, talismans, and memo pads created using the Lotte Tower IP. In addition, special merchandise such as first edition volumes and Chipotle collaboration items from series like 'Remarried Empress,' 'Solo Leveling,' and 'Tomb Raider King' will be available for the first time and in limited quantities at this pop-up event.
From the 19th to the 22nd, Lotte World and Lotte Cinema World Tower will host 'official exhibitions and interactive programs' that will excite webtoon fans. At the Lotte World Ice Rink, a 'Webtoon Special Exhibition' will explore the history of webtoons, accompanied by a 'Live Drawing Show' by webtoon artists and a 'Live Dubbing Show' by popular voice actor Nam Dohyeong. There will also be a signing event with Kwangjin, creator of 'Itaewon Class.' At Lotte Cinema World Tower's Hall 8, a 'Talk Concert' featuring Han Dongwoo and Ko Jinho, the creators of the popular webtoon 'Terror Man,' will be held, and on the 22nd, the '2025 World Webtoon Awards' will take place to honor the best webtoons of the year.
There will also be a variety of 'special benefits' for general visitors and customers. Those who spend over 100,000 won at the pop-up shops will receive a limited-edition webtoon shopping bag featuring popular webtoon IPs, and those who make advance reservations or arrive early will be given a commemorative grip tok.
Kwon Ami, Chief Buyer of the Young Culture Team at Lotte Department Store, stated, "Lotte Town Jamsil is growing into a global integrated theme complex that attracts worldwide attention with its signature events each season. We expect that the World Webtoon Festival will draw not only webtoon enthusiasts but also domestic and international tourists interested in webtoons."
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