'2026 Art Startup Day' opens registration for general participants

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Arts Management Support Center are accepting applications from general participants for the 2026 Art Startup Day, to be held Nov. 9-10 at Art Korea Lab in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The registration deadline is Nov. 3.

The 2026 Art Startup Day is designed to help arts-based companies find sustainable growth by fostering exchanges with large and mid-sized corporations and investors. This year, organizers are opening four sessions to general participants: open debates, networking coffee chats, an open consulting booth and an IR demo day.

The first day centers on the theme of "collaboration," featuring open debates and networking coffee chats.

The first open debate will focus on scale-up experiences shared by arts companies that have grown through support programs run by the Arts Management Support Center. Kim Se-hee of Costa, Nam Jang-won of Kimu and Moon Sang-won of Weart will join as panelists.

The second open debate will bring together representatives from large and mid-sized companies — including Moon Yu-sun, a strategic planning manager at Shinhan Card, and Lee Mok-hwa, a team leader in the MD strategy division at Hyundai Duty-Free — to discuss the value of collaborating with arts companies and pathways to commercialization.

A networking coffee chat, introduced for the first time this year, will bring together five companies — including Desker (a Fursys Group brand), Hoban Group and KT Corp — to exchange collaboration ideas.

The second day is themed around "investment" and will feature an IR demo day, where eight arts companies at various stages of development will present their business models and growth potential before 20 investors and general participants.

An open consulting booth will run throughout both days, offering one-on-one sessions with specialists across different fields.

An official from the Arts Management Support Center said the event is intended to give people interested in arts entrepreneurship a chance to gather the information they need and resolve questions they have long been sitting with.