A Year-Round Festival Full of Joy... Nowon-gu Festival Participation Essay Published Online and Offline

Nowon-gu, Passionate About Festivals 'Walking Nowon 2 - Festival'
Digital Humanities Content 'Walking Nowon' Second Series 'Festival' Published
Depicts How Cultural Festivals Transform Residents' Daily Lives Following Successes of Bulamsan Azalea Festival, Gyeongchun Line Gongneung Forest Coffee Festival, and Nowon Craft Beer Festival

Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it has published the festival participation essay "Walking Nowon 2 ? Festival," which vividly captures the scenes of more than ten major festivals continuing since last year.

"Walking Nowon," a digital humanities content project by the Nowon Cultural Foundation, was planned to convey the charm of Nowon through engaging and vivid stories using professional writers' texts, photos, and videos.

The recently published second volume focuses on the theme of "festival," vividly depicting how cultural festivals transform the daily lives of residents.

Each chapter features various fictional narrators such as a teacher, a job seeker, a father with a 5-year-old daughter, and a pet owner experiencing pet loss, presenting the festivals of Nowon from the perspectives of residents living different daily lives.

The major festivals of Nowon introduced in "Walking Nowon" include large-scale cultural festivals such as Nowon Dalbit Sanchaek (Nowon Moonlight Walk), Dancing Nowon, and Nowon Craft Beer Festival, as well as about ten events held in 2023 like Nowon Street Arts Festival, B-boy Battle Competition, Pet Culture Festival, and Nowon Christmas Festival.

"Walking Nowon" can also be enjoyed as digital media content through an app and web page developed in collaboration with the Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation of Induk University. The 360-degree VR videos of festival sites add a vivid immersive experience. Residents who wish to view the content can check it on the Nowon Cultural Foundation website via the web or search for "Walking Nowon" on the Google Play Store or App Store to download it for free. The first volume, published in 2021, was produced to capture the history and culture embedded in the streets of Nowon.

Meanwhile, during the period when local government festivals were suspended due to COVID-19, the district completely revamped its festival projects and has been actively carrying out festival activities with new attempts and planning.

As a result, Nowon's festivals have been evaluated by district officials and local residents as ▲young and dynamic festivals, ▲productions that maximize the charm and characteristics of local landmarks, and ▲collaborative festivals created together with local youth, merchants, and other residents.

In fact, since the first Nowon Craft Beer Festival held last year attracted 50,000 visitors and was a success, this year the same festival drew about 80,000 visitors, the Gyeongchun Line Gongneung Forest Coffee Festival attracted about 43,000 visitors, and the Bulamsan Azalea Festival saw about 230,000 visitors. This is why expectations are high for the district’s second half of the year festivals following the completion of the first half.

In the second half of the year, the district’s representative street parade festival "Dancing Nowon," the "Gyeongchun Line Forest Autumn Concert" featuring a spectacular drone show, and the light sculpture festival "Nowon Dalbit Sanchaek" enjoyed along a quiet waterside walking path are scheduled.

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, stated, “Culture is a universal welfare that enriches the lives of all residents. We have held various festivals, and the results are being recognized by the residents. We will carefully manage the process of preserving, evaluating, and recording the achievements of festivals, such as through the publication of 'Walking Nowon,' to present a continuously developing cultural city, Nowon.”

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