All 900 meters of Sinwol-ro's six-lane road will transform into a festival grounds, opening with a street parade
Themed zones on dreams, travel and recovery join performances by singers including Park Ji-hyun, with food stalls and traditional arts rounding out the day
Yangcheon-gu will hold the 3rd Yangcheon Family Street Festival along a roughly 900-meter stretch of Sinwol-ro near Sinjeong Sageori Station this Sunday.
Once a year, the six-lane Sinwol-ro is closed to traffic and transformed into a sprawling festival street where families and neighbors can walk and enjoy the day together.
Now in its third year, the festival drew about 85,000 visitors last year and has established itself as Yangcheon-gu's signature event, welcoming everyone from children to seniors in the heart of the city. This year's edition is themed around "family, dreams, healing and recovery," with distinctive themed zones set up along the route and an expanded lineup of resident-led parades, performances, hands-on activities and food.
Stretching from Sinjeong Sageori Station toward Seoul Southern District Court, the 900-meter festival grounds will feature, in order: a welcome plaza, a book festival zone, a kids' play zone, a cloud path, a travel path, a fringe stage, a wind path, a partner-organization zone, a food zone and a main stage.
The festival opens with a large street parade featuring about 400 participants — residents from 18 neighborhoods and a marching band — who will march through the grounds to the upbeat rhythms of samba. This year, visitors on the sidelines can also join a themed-song performance, turning the event from a spectacle to watch into one that residents help create together.
After the parade, family-friendly spaces line the route. The starting point, the welcome plaza, greets visitors with cloud-themed photo spots and rest areas that set the festival mood from the moment they arrive. The book festival zone offers an outdoor library, author meet-and-greets and a free secondhand book stall along the street.
Younger visitors are well catered for. The kids' play zone hosts a large-scale puppet show based on "Alice in Wonderland," a pop-up playground, and police and fire department safety experience programs. The open-air fringe stage keeps the energy up with acoustic busking sets and other up-close performances.
This year's "dreams, travel and recovery" theme gives each zone a distinct character. The cloud path, dedicated to families' dreams and wishes, features a program where visitors write their dreams on balloons and release them, alongside mood-light crafting and an AI photo zone — all designed to spark conversations about dreams across generations.
The travel path is a play space where families can get active and step away from daily routines, with competitive and cooperative games including "Yangcheon Alley Champion," "Yangcheon Fitness King" and a mole-catching game. The wind path that follows serves as a recovery space to pause and recharge, featuring a corridor decorated with drawings by children from local daycare centers, herbal tea tastings and a family-love post box where visitors can take a moment to reflect on one another.
In the latter half of the festival grounds, a partner-organization zone, a food zone and the main stage keep the fun going. The partner-organization zone, where local groups including the Yangcheon Love Welfare Foundation take part, offers keycap keyring making, family photo printing and other memory-making activities. The food zone brings together 19 of Yangcheon-gu's top restaurants in one place for a full spread of local flavors.
The main stage turns up the heat from the afternoon onward. Starting at 1 p.m., singers Na Tae-ju and Park Gun host "Taegun Talent Show," with residents able to sign up on the spot and take the stage themselves. The Yangcheon Cultural Center's traditional arts festival follows, with gugak performer Oh Jeong-hae, the National Dance Company of Korea and other traditional artists showcasing the spirit and beauty of Korean music and dance.
From 6:40 p.m., a dream musical gala opens the evening program, after which popular singers An Ye-eun, Soyou, Baek Ji-young and Park Ji-hyun take the stage in succession, spanning generations and tastes, to bring the day to a rousing close.
Bigger crowds, safer venue — seating expanded to 1,200, road closed for 30 hours
The district is also stepping up safety and crowd management this year. Main-stage seating will expand from 1,000 to 1,200 seats, and fences will be installed in front of the stage and seating area to prevent crowd-crush incidents and create a safer viewing environment.
To allow for setup and smooth operations, Sinwol-ro's six-lane, roughly 900-meter stretch between Sinjeong Sageori Station and Seoul Southern District Court will be fully closed to vehicle traffic for 30 hours — from 10 p.m. Saturday through 4 a.m. Monday. Traffic control personnel will be stationed at key points to ensure pedestrian safety, and detour guidance will be provided to minimize inconvenience for residents.
"The Yangcheon Family Street Festival, which drew about 85,000 people last year, is back this year with an even richer lineup of things to see and do," Yangcheon-gu District Mayor Lee Gi-jae said. "We will create a uniquely Yangcheon festival where families, neighbors and every generation — from children to seniors — can enjoy themselves together, understand one another and grow closer on a six-lane road."
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
