How the Yeongyang Mountain Vegetable Festival Revived Community Spirit After Wildfires: Key Highlights

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The 21st Yeongyang Mountain Vegetable Festival — Yeongyang County’s signature celebration in North Gyeongsang Province — drew roughly 120,000 visitors over four days and wrapped up in high spirits on the 10th.

It felt especially meaningful to locals, returning about a year after last year’s devastating wildfire.

To jump-start the local economy and bring the community back together, Yeongyang County and the Yeongyang Festival & Tourism Foundation reworked the festival from the ground up. They overhauled visitor flow to ease recurring parking headaches and sprinkled stages of all sizes across the grounds, turning the whole site into a vibrant street-performance zone.

That meant people could stroll and catch live music everywhere they went, and with most activity booths free, families left especially satisfied. Hands-on favorites included 360-degree video experiences, wooden play structures, a butterfly ecology exhibit, and an air-bounce playground — attractions that appealed to every age group.

On the evening of the 9th, the festival’s celebratory concert — featuring singers Hwang Garam and Min Kyung-hoon — turned up the heat. Fans clustered around the stage late into the night, creating an energy that felt bigger than a typical local fair.

Munsuji, 37, who came from Andong with her family, said, “There were so many free activities that my kids never got bored all day. I had heard the community was down after the wildfire, so seeing this lively scene warmed my heart.”

The festival also hosted on-site campaigns to help restore the local community and strengthen the welfare safety net. Yeongyang County set up information booths and ran participatory programs focused on filling welfare blind spots and preventing deaths among isolated residents.

At the “Welfare Know-How: Mountain Vegetable Quiz” booth, organizers used OX (true/false) quizzes to point out that solitary deaths can affect not only seniors but also middle-aged people, and to reassure attendees that reporters’ identities are kept confidential when they report at-risk households. The county urged festivalgoers to look out for neighborhood warning signs, such as elderly people living alone or homes with lights off for long stretches.

The Yeongyang Multicultural Family Support Center’s booth was another crowd-pleaser. From the 7th through the 10th, the center offered global traditional costumes and props, multilingual greeting demos, and a pen-decorating workshop, giving visitors a chance to experience diverse cultures.

Families especially loved the traditional costume photo zone. Visitors tried on outfits, had their pictures taken, and walked away with instant prints and a complimentary photo case as keepsakes.

Cha Gwang-in, acting mayor of Yeongyang County (deputy mayor), said, “This year’s Mountain Vegetable Festival was especially meaningful because residents came together to prepare it after the wildfire. We estimate it generated an economic impact of 6 billion KRW (approximately $4.5 million).” He added, “We will continue to boost the local economy and strengthen tourism competitiveness by developing longer-stay festivals that highlight Yeongyang’s nature and culture.”