Korean Music Festival Experience

One of my favorite experiences in South Korea so far has been going to a music festival. On May 3rd, I went to the Hipphopplaya Festival with my friend and had a lot of fun!!

The festival was at KINTEX (Korea International Exhibition Center) in Ilsan, just northwest of Seoul. There are two buildings associated with KINTEX, and the festival was held in KINTEX 2, which is the largest exhibition center in Korea! Interestingly, the day we went it looked like there was a cosplay convocation happening in the other building. KINTEX is easy to get to from Seoul Station because the GTX-A subway takes you there in about 20 minutes. We didn’t do a whole lot of research before, so to our surprise, the whole festival was inside rather than outside! We arrived about an hour before the doors opened and had to wait in the rain, but we ultimately were thankful the festival was all inside.

The first thing we did once we got inside was get food since we were ravenous. One thing I noticed was that the food was much better than what I’ve had at music festivals in the US. It was still a bit on the expensive side, but they had Korean fried chicken, kimchi noodles, burgers, pizza, and even ice cream! There was also a Jameson popup and a café selling iced americanos and two other juice drinks. The limited menu meant we got our drinks super fast since they were all premade. We also received two free protein powder drinks which was a nice bonus!

One annoying thing I observed about the festival was that there were no water refill stations. However, this may have just been because the event was inside. We had to buy water from a vendor or vending machine, both of which had super long lines. Even though the event was inside, I still felt dehydrated from standing for a long time and standing in a crowd of people. In the future, I would plan to bring more water with me.

Despite having no free water options, the setup of the festival was great! One thing I appreciated about the venue was that the view was amazing even from the back. My friend and I took a break during a few sets and were still able to see and enjoy all the artists. Speaking of artists, I got to see some of my favorite K-hiphop/R&B artists such as Dean, Crush, Zico, Zion T., and Lee Young Ji. The lineup was incredible and I’m really happy I had the chance to go! Festivals are the perfect opportunity to see a bunch of artists. I was exhausted afterwards, but I would say the experience was very much worth it! Festivals are much cheaper here than in the US, so I would definitely recommend going to one while in South Korea!