Through the fall, the alleys of Daejeon's Yuseong-gu will become festival grounds one after another. Across all 13 dong, neighborhood festivals planned and run by residents themselves will continue as a relay through October. The dates differ by district, and so do the hands that put the programs together.
The format is the thing to see.
In that the hands writing the proposals are hands that live in the neighborhood, this festival parts ways with the usual local government event. The meetings that decide what to do are held inside the alleys rather than at the district office.
The grounds of a neighborhood festival are usually not large. The dull sound of a tent's steel pole meeting the asphalt, the metallic noise of a folding chair opening, the smell of frying oil filling the alley at dusk fill that narrow yard. Instead of the lights of a large stage, bare bulbs strung on a wire sway. There are things possible only at that scale.
In the same fall, in Busan, the 31st Busan International Film Festival opens on Tuesday, October 6, and closes on Thursday, October 15. Screenings run mainly at the Busan Cinema Center, and the full lineup of invited works is released all at once on September 1. A large festival completes its schedule and then calls in the audience. At Yuseong's neighborhood festivals, the audience takes on the work of drawing up the schedule from the start.
Resident planning has its unsteady points. As long as the administration holds the budget and the schedule, the risk that resident planning remains a name written on a document follows along. Conversely, if everything is left to them, the work piles onto the few people doing the preparing. The 13 dong will divide the order and hold their festivals through October.
If the format of one household inviting the one next door works even once, the number of people whose names you know goes up by a few after the day ends. In Yuseong, a research complex and large residential areas sit side by side.
You can go as an audience member, or you can stand on the side that puts up the tents. The latter is closer to this festival's original way. Before October passes, the turn of the neighborhood you live in comes around once.
Event Information
Date: Through October 2026, held sequentially by district
Venue: Across the 13 dong of Yuseong-gu, Daejeon
Host: Residents of each dong (planning and operation)
