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Daejeon Zero O’Clock Festival draws over 1 million with celebrations of city's past and future

Published: 12 Aug. 2025, 16:05

This year's Daejeon Zero O'Clock Festival takes place across the city of Daejeon from Aug. 8 to 16. [DAEJEON CULTURE AND ARTS FOUNDATION]

DAEJEON — The Daejeon Zero O’Clock Festival drew more than one million visitors in just four days after opening — fueled by a variety of hands-on programs and content built around the Kkumssi character family.

The weeklong citywide festival, which features various events to promote the city's history and future, attracted 1.05 million people between its opening last Friday and Monday, according to the Daejeon city government. The daily tallies were about 247,000 on the first day, 325,000 on Aug. 9, 294,000 on Aug. 10, and around 189,000 on Aug. 11 — over 100,000 more than in the same period last year.

The festival runs through Aug. 16 at Jungang-ro in Jung District, the old South Chungcheong provincial government complex, nearby commercial districts and Daejeon Station, featuring exhibits, performances and on-site experiences for visitors.

"Eleven unmanned counting devices were installed along the Jungang-ro area from Daejeon Station to the old South Chungcheong provincial government building [in Seonhwa-dong], using body-temperature sensors to estimate attendance," said a city government official.

This year’s festival also features the city's mascot Kkumssi, which reimagines the mascot Kkumdori from the 1993 Daejeon Expo. At the venue, 4,000 boxes of Kkumdori walnut cookies were sold in just four days. They are produced and sold not by a private company but by a man in his 30s taking part in a public job program, with each box of 10 priced at 6,000 won ($4). Kkumdori instant noodles and Kkumdori makgeolli rice wine have also proven popular.

This year's Daejeon Zero O'Clock Festival takes place across the city of Daejeon from Aug. 8 to 16. [DAEJEON CULTURE AND ARTS FOUNDATION]

One of the festival’s main attractions, the “Past Zone” on Jungang-ro, recreates streets, shops and train stations from the 1960s and 1970s. It features period slogans such as “1974 is the year not to have babies” and “Period for preventing women from running away from home” — when an overpopulated and conservative Korea encouraged people not to have too many children and blocked women from leaving their homes to find jobs in the capital city. During these times, when rural people were flocking to Seoul and the population was surging, the government promoted a campaign urging people to “have just two children and raise them well."

"It feels like seeing an unexpected slice of history, something unrealistic from our point of view," said Kim Seo-jeong, a university student who visited the festival.

The Family Theme Park, which the Daejeon Cultural Foundation opened on Aug. 2 at the old provincial government building, also surpassed 200,000 cumulative visitors by Aug. 11. On Aug. 9 and 10, families, teenagers and couples crowded into photo spots such as “Gampilago Beach,” “Kkumdori Hill” and the “Moon Exploration VR" with waits of more than an hour for entry. Gampilago is the fictional planet that Kkumdori is supposed to have come from.

At the park’s front lawn, a one-person drama circus performance drew tightly packed audiences for each show, with visitors watching juggling with seven balls and a ladder-climbing act. The park operates daily from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. until Aug. 16, with programs including the Kkumdori Garden, Gampilago Beach and Hill, Kkumssi Arcade and a science lab.

This year's Daejeon Zero O'Clock Festival takes place across the city of Daejeon from Aug. 8 to 16. [DAEJEON CULTURE AND ARTS FOUNDATION]

Dajeon's junior Dream Orchestra will hold a “Movie Music Concert on a Midsummer Night” (translated) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the outdoor stage in front of the old provincial government building. The program includes famed music scores from films such as “Mission: Impossible.” The performance is free and requires no reservation.

"Just as the saying goes that economy and culture bloom where people gather, the Daejeon Zero O'Clock Festival is bringing life into our business and tourism industry," said the Daejeon Culture and Arts Foundation. "We will endeavor to complete a festival where the citizens and tourists all come together."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom staff.
BY KIM BANG-HYUN [[email protected]]