Seoul Silver Grass Festival

🗓️ 2026.10.17 ~ 2026.10.23

Since its first edition in 2002, the Seoul Silvergrass Festival has become a representative autumn ecological culture festival in Seoul. It takes place at Haneul Park (World Cup Park) and draws up to 700,000 visitors each year who come to enjoy the silvergrass in its autumn setting. This year, the festival marks its 25th anniversary under the theme “Silvergrass, Consolation Offered by Nature.” The program includes a lighting show in which music and colorful lights harmonize with the silvergrass, a Five Senses Garden, silvergrass bouquet making, busking performances, and a newly established resource circulation market. Admission is free.

The 2026 edition also offers a distinctive feature: the Re-born Market, a resource circulation market scheduled to be newly established and operated this year. Visitors can also appreciate silvergrass, bassia, and the permanent gardens from the International Garden Expo within Haneul Park.

Opening Ceremony

• Lighting show announcing the start of the 25th Seoul Silvergrass Festival
• Performances by show choir group Harmonize, Seongmisan Orchestra, etc.

Lighting Show

• A lighting show combining music and colorful lights, providing unique sights at the nighttime festival grounds.

Five Senses Garden

• Gardens within the festival grounds to be experienced with the five senses, such as a Garden of Consolation with red-colored bassia and a Garden of Hope to successfully wrap up the year with silvergrass word sculptures.

Photo Zone, Wish Zone

• Photo zones located throughout the Seoul Silvergrass Festival grounds where commemorative photos can be taken, and a Wish Zone where visitors can write and hang their cherished wishes.

Busking Performances

• Busking performances of various genres taking place at the central stage busking zone.

Resource Circulation Market [Re-born Market]

• An experience and sales market for resource-utilizing upcycled products such as recycled container pots, permaculture agricultural products, silvergrass, and grasses.
• 15 open-call sellers per day from various fields, such as Earth Gardeners, Earth Farmers, and Circular Creators.

Experience Programs

• Making Haneul silvergrass bouquets
• Making seed bombs
• Making beeswax wraps with Honey Forest Bee Forest (Korea Green Foundation)
• Making eco-friendly sock-ring four-leaf clovers (Seoul Energy Dream Center)
• Silvergrass! Go, Haneul Park
• Seoul Silvergrass Festival photo printing station with the park photographer
• Seoul Silvergrass Festival commemorative letter writing experience (Seoul Regional Post Office, Korea Post Agency, etc.)
• Silvergrass and Sky Library
• 1,000 bouquets shared with 1,000 citizens
• Sharing empty bottle gardens

Special Programs

On-site registration via advance reservation.

• Making carbon-storing reading wood rings
• Singing bowl meditation amidst the silvergrass
• Electric vehicle tour: Kkoebung-ka appearing at the silvergrass festival grounds

📍 Address: 95 Haneul Park-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul (Sangam-dong)

🛏️ Accommodation near the event

💰 Fee: Free

📞 Inquiry: 02-300-5574

🖥️ Website: https://parks.seoul.go.kr/

Haneul Park

Haneul Park—from the Korean for “Sky Park”—is a public park in Seoul’s Mapo district, on a hill within the World Cup Park complex. The hill was formed by a landfill that received the city’s garbage for more than 15 years, closing in 1993. Rather than remove the waste, the city capped it with soil and clay, installed methane gas vents, and gradually established vegetation. By the early 2000s the site was stable enough to open as a park. The result is a landscape built on constrained conditions: the soil is shallow, the slopes are steep, and the plant life has been chosen accordingly.

The park’s main feature is its high, open grassland. Large areas are covered with silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis), which turns pale and dry by autumn and is the visual focus of the annual Silver Grass Festival. The festival also includes evening light installations, which are arranged along existing paths rather than on the grass itself. The park’s elevation gives clear views over the Han River, the city center, and the hills beyond, so it is used throughout the year for sunset and night viewing.

This year’s festival is the 25th. Its program is modest: walking routes, a limited number of installations, and food and information stalls at the lower entrance. Visitors reach the park on foot or by a small electric tram; private vehicles are not allowed. The paths are surfaced with permeable materials to reduce runoff, and certain areas are cordoned off to allow the grass to recover. Litter bins are placed only at entry and exit points, and visitors are asked to carry waste out. These rules are not presented as a gesture toward sustainability. They are necessary because the grassland is shallow-rooted and easily damaged by foot traffic, and the park’s long-term use depends on limiting that damage.

None of this makes Haneul Park a “symbol” of anything. It is an unusually large green space in a dense city, created from waste disposal infrastructure and maintained with a clear set of constraints. That is enough to make it worth a visit.