Gimcheon City’s Gimcheon Gimbap Festival Wins Grand Prize at Korea Festival Contents Awards

Proving the Nation’s Top Competitiveness in Festival Content

On February 24, the city of Gimcheon in North Gyeongsang Province received the Grand Prize in the Festival Content category at the 14th Korea Festival Contents Awards, held at the Peace & Park Convention in Yongsan, Seoul.

This is a valuable achievement that marks a second consecutive year of recognition following last year’s Special Award in the Festival Program category. In particular, by winning the Grand Prize in the content category, which can be called the core of any festival, the city has proven the potential of the festival to grow into one of Korea’s leading festivals.

Wins Grand Prize in Festival Content Category / Kim Ihwan, Reporter

The Korea Festival Contents Awards are prestigious awards in which a panel of festival experts comprehensively evaluates outstanding festivals nationwide based on festival operation performance, eco-friendly festival operation, visitor awareness and satisfaction, local residents’ support, and the distinctiveness of the content. Through document screening and final review, they select Korea’s representative festivals for 2025.

This year’s Gimcheon Gimbap Festival went beyond a simple food event and expanded into cultural content. By replacing a formal opening ceremony with visitor participation-centered programs and by creating differentiated experiential content, the festival was designed so that visitors became the main protagonists, earning high marks.

In particular, unique content such as a Gimbap Cooking Contest using local specialty products, a Gimbap Creation Studio where visitors choose ingredients and make their own gimbap to eat, a nationwide unique gimbap talk show hosted by a Gimbap Curator, and a first-birthday celebration event marking the first anniversary of the character “Kkodari” further enhanced the completeness of the festival.

Gimcheon Mayor Bae Nakho said, “It is very meaningful that we have received the Grand Prize in the Festival Content category this year, following the Special Award last year. We will supplement what is lacking and continuously strengthen our content competitiveness so that the festival can develop into a must-experience, representative festival of Korea.”