The Gangneung Danoje Festival opens on June 15 around the Namdaecheon River in Gangneung. Inscribed on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, this village festival still holds on the riverside in early summer a rite that has crossed nearly a thousand years.
On one side of the festival there is the rite. The rite proceeds slowly along a fixed sequence. Time that does not hurry holds the center of this festival.
On the other side there is the water gun fight. This game, in which river water is poured into plastic tanks and aimed at one another, takes place on the same day along the same riverbank as the rite. With the rite and the water play set side by side, the festival draws several generations to the same waterside.
Old festivals always waver between preservation and use. The demand to keep the original form intact and the demand to draw more people collide every year on the same riverside. The larger the stage grows, the more easily the strictness of the rite thins out, and if only the rite remains, younger generations turn away.
The Gangneung Danoje Festival has carried on holding the demands of preservation and use together. The sequence in which the village prays for a peaceful year and the hours in which children run about soaked in water stay close to each other without pushing each other away. That is why this festival does not remain only in records but is actually held every year.
The venue is the area around the Namdaecheon River. It is a riverside, so shade is not plentiful and the ground by the water is uneven, and shoes that do not slip are better. If you walk toward the side where the water play takes place, it is easier on the mind to go prepared to get wet.
The opening is on June 15. The rite and the water play are held together on the same day on the Namdaecheon riverbank.
Event Information
Date: Opens June 15, 2026
Venue: Around the Namdaecheon River, Gangneung
