Yongin City plans to develop Joayong Festival into a national and global character festival

It will be held at Mir Stadium on the 3rd and 4th of next month... Expanded to 39 participating characters

(Yongin = Yonhap News) Reporter Gwang-ho Kim = Yongin City, Gyeonggi Province, announced on the 8th that it plans to foster and develop the 'Korea Jo A-yong Festival', which was first held last year with the city's official character 'Jo A-yong', into a nationwide tourism-type character festival in the future.

The city held its first Joayong Festival as part of the 30th 'Yongin Citizen's Day' festival at Yongin Mir Stadium on September 27-28 last year.

At the festival, which was held under the theme of 'Korea becoming one through characters, Yongin growing through culture,' 27 characters from 17 organizations across the country, including Jo Ah-yong, participated and received a great response from visitors.

The city plans to further expand the scale of this year's festival, which will be held at the same location on the 3rd and 4th of next month to commemorate the 31st Citizen's Day and the 30th anniversary of the city's elevation to city status.

We plan to increase the number of participating organizations to 27 and the number of participating characters to 39, and significantly expand citizen participation content such as the Jo A-yong parade, cosplay contest, and Jo A-yong short-form challenge.

During the festival, we plan to hold a cyber science festival, lifelong learning fair, youth festival, food festival, food industry fair, and Jo A-yong Food Festival in cooperation with local companies.

The city expects the number of festival visitors this year to be about 60,000, a significant increase from last year (about 45,000).

Moreover, the city has decided to supplement representative content and strengthen the identity and differentiation of the festival through expert advice and visitor surveys next year.

In addition, the plan is to expand the participation of national characters and related organizations in 2028 and develop this event into a nationally representative character festival by linking it with tourism, commercial districts, and cultural facilities.

After 2029, we plan to develop it into a global character festival for stay and exchange through cooperation with overseas exchange cities.

A city official said, "Going forward, we will strengthen the content and increase the number of participating characters at home and abroad so that the Joayong Festival can establish itself as a national and global character festival and contribute to revitalizing the local economy."