This is a performance festival built around Anseong’s namsadang tradition and Baudeogi, the female troupe leader associated with the city’s namsadang history. The useful reason to come is direct: you can watch tightrope walking, percussion, acrobatics and other folk performance forms in a festival setting rather than piecing them together across separate venues.
The public festival runs from Friday, October 2 to Monday, October 5, 2026, from 10:00 to 21:00. A memorial rite, street parade and eve programme take place on Thursday, October 1, before the advertised festival dates. The main site is Anseong Matchum Land in Bogae-myeon; Anseongcheon is a secondary site, so read the venue beside each event rather than assuming everything happens at one gate.
What you actually do here
Make Namsadang Nori the anchor of the visit. Jultagi, the tightrope act, is the easiest set piece to identify, but the programme is broader than one balancing act: musicians, dancers and acrobatic performers work as a troupe. The 2026 outline also lists invited performance groups from Korea and abroad, an Anseong old-market reconstruction and the Anseong Culture Market Festa.
The tourism listing separates the programme into useful groups. Performance items include Namsadang Nori, a traditional wedding, theatre pieces and a World Heritage masterclass. The citizen stages are scheduled to host the THE NEXT Baudeogi competition, a community choir festival, a 100-player saxophone performance and local arts acts. These are announced programme categories, not a promise that every item runs daily. Choose by the final day-by-day grid once it is complete.
The hands-on and market side includes Baudeogi Theme Park, a Baudeogi culture tour, the reconstructed old market and the Anseong Culture Market. Exhibition and sales areas are listed for agricultural and livestock products, an Anseong master-craft exhibition and a global studio. Some mapped attractions are permanent Matchum Land facilities rather than festival performances, so check their own operating conditions before building a visit around them.
For 2026 the city has expanded the international side under the theme “Baudeogi, Joseon’s first idol, shakes the world.” Local reporting names a new after-dark Baudeogi Signature Show built from movement, music and projection, a World Heritage masterclass featuring overseas troupes from bodies including CIOFF (Egyptian and Taiwanese groups are named), and a global studio streaming from the grounds. The THE NEXT Baudeogi stage has also been broadened this year from traditional music toward bands and musical acts. These are announced additions; confirm the day and stage on the official grid rather than assuming each runs every day.
The grounds span Anseong Matchum Land and the Anseongcheon area, so this is not a single seated show. Allow at least half a day to move between stages, watch one complete namsadang performance and browse the market area. The festival publishes 10:00–21:00 opening hours, but check the official daily programme for the particular acts you want to see.
Programme and timetable
Three 2026 times were live on the official programme page when this guide was updated. On Thursday, October 1, the street parade runs from 19:00 to 20:00 through Ayang-dong, on a route beginning at the former dawn market, passing the Anseong grocery-supply mart and ending at Naehyehol Square. The eve programme follows at Naehyehol Square from 20:00 to 22:00. These are in central Anseong, not at the main Matchum Land grounds, and they fall one day before the four-day festival date range. For the parade, the city has now confirmed a road closure over that whole corridor from 16:00 to 22:00 on October 1 — several hours wider than the parade itself — so if you are near central Anseong that afternoon, expect the route around the former dawn market, the grocery mart and Naehyehol Square to be shut to traffic well before the walking begins.
The opening ceremony is listed for Friday, October 2 from 19:00 to 20:30 on the main stage. The site plan places that stage separately from the dedicated namsadang performance hall, old-market stage and Bandal Madang citizen-arts stage. Build walking time into any sequence involving more than one.
Do not copy the remaining times from the same official list without checking the year. At this update, its opening ceremony and October 1 events had rolled forward to 2026, but the opening-of-grounds entry, memorial rite and closing ceremony still displayed 2025 dates. This guide therefore does not state 2026 times for those items. The organiser also maintains separate performance, experience, event and full-schedule pages; use the full grid close to departure because a broad programme name does not tell you which day, stage or session to attend.
The 10:00–21:00 hours describe the festival day, not continuous performance on every stage. If tightrope walking is the reason for the trip, locate a named jultagi or complete namsadang nori session first, then fit markets around it.
Tickets, fees and booking
General admission is confirmed free by both the Korea Tourism Organization and the 2026 festival record. There is no general gate price to budget or advance festival pass to buy on the information published so far.
Free entry does not establish that every workshop, ride or temporary attraction is free. The current official information does not publish a dependable 2026 price list for individual experiences, and the food stalls are commercial purchases. Check the sign at a booth before joining and keep a separate activity and meal budget. This guide also leaves card acceptance unchecked because neither the organiser nor the tourism listing confirms it.
No reservation procedure is published for the opening ceremony or main namsadang sessions. That is not evidence of guaranteed seating. Arrive before a priority performance and follow later queue notices. The festival contact is 031-678-5414 within Korea.
Getting there without a car
From Seoul Express Bus Terminal, the scheduled intercity-bus run to Anseong Bus Terminal takes about 1 hour 10 minutes. At Anseong, follow the festival’s shuttle signs rather than trying to walk to the grounds: the venue is outside the central terminal area. The official 2026 access page names Anseong Bus Terminal as a shuttle stop and also lists Hankyong National University, Bongsan Rotary, Anseong Sports Complex, Bogae-myeon Office and Anseong Matchum Art Hall.
The 1 hour 10 minute figure is the timetable between terminals, not a door-to-stage journey. A current schedule based on Ministry of Land public data shows repeated Seoul Gyeongbu–Anseong runs at that duration, while the festival’s own access page separately requires the local shuttle transfer. Add time to find the stop, wait and enter the grounds. Road congestion can also move the real arrival beyond the printed bus time.
There is a rail alternative via Pyeongtaek Station, followed by local bus 370 or 380 and then the shuttle, but it adds another transfer. The direct bus to Anseong is the cleaner route from Seoul. Recheck the bus and shuttle notices shortly before departure; the published route information does not give enough detail to promise a fixed connection time.
Regular bus 15-1 between central Anseong and Matchum Land has only six published trips per day, so do not assume it is an immediate fallback. A second direct Seoul option is metropolitan bus 4401 from Gangnam to Hankyong National University, where the festival directs passengers to transfer to the shuttle; its road journey varies with traffic.
Parking, shuttles and traffic control
Drivers should navigate to 198 Namsadang-ro, Bogae-myeon, Anseong-si, then obey the temporary signs rather than insisting on the last route shown by a navigation app. The official access page publishes separate maps for entry and exit controls and for festival parking. It also warns that medium and large buses cannot park inside the festival grounds: after passengers get off, those vehicles must use the dedicated large-bus area at Anseong Sports Complex, identified as P14-1.
For ordinary cars, the map confirms multiple parking areas but the text page does not supply a verified 2026 fee, capacity for each lot or a guarantee of a space. Leave those numbers unquoted. The practical choice is to use the organiser’s designated parking and shuttle system, especially later in the day, and to keep enough time between parking and a fixed performance. This is not a hypothetical caution: the city reported that the Anseong Matchum Land car parks filled up during the 2025 festival and openly steered visitors onto the shuttle. Plan for the same in 2026.
Ahead of this year’s opening the organiser also announced a crowd-safety plan, with a joint on-site inspection by police, fire, the electric-power and gas-safety authorities and a local disaster-response corps scheduled for September 30. The stated measures include staged, phased entry when large numbers arrive and steps to prevent bottlenecks at pinch points, plus wet-weather electrical and fire precautions. In practice that means you may be held or routed at busy moments, so build slack into any plan pinned to a fixed performance time.
The main gate opens toward agricultural-specialty sales and experience zones; the main stage and namsadang hall are farther in. The food market, old market, waterfront illumination and Bandal Madang stage are not one compact row. Save the map, but follow live signs if routes change.
Food on site and a local specialty
The 2026 layout names an Anseong market/other-food area, tavern street, food street, two food-truck areas and an Anseongcheon food section. KTO also lists a grilled-livestock-products zone and agricultural and livestock sales. That establishes that food and produce sales are part of the plan.
It does not yet establish the final menus. The official food page still showed its categories as “content in preparation” on September 7, and KTO explicitly labels its detailed food material as 2025 information while the 2026 update is in progress. Do not travel for a particular dish or rely on an old vendor price until the organiser fills the current page.
One regional product is firm enough to plan around: Anseongmachum pear. Anseong City includes pear among its five official agricultural specialties and identifies Singo as the principal cultivar, describing a large, round Asian pear with crisp flesh and abundant juice. The city gives late September onward as its shipping period, placing this festival at the beginning of that seasonal window. Agricultural-product sales are a confirmed festival category, but this guide does not claim that a particular pear farm or product will occupy a booth until the vendor list says so.
Day trip or overnight
This works as a Seoul day trip if you choose a daytime namsadang session and leave a generous margin for both shuttle rides. A half-day at the grounds is a better minimum than arriving for one show and leaving immediately.
Staying overnight is optional rather than a conclusion this guide can verify. The public festival ends at 21:00, while the October 1 eve programme ends at 22:00 in central Anseong, but a date-specific last-bus connection after the final programme has not been confirmed here. If the eve programme or a late main-stage event is essential, check the return bus and shuttle together before choosing a same-night Seoul ticket. No particular hotel is recommended because current availability and walking access were not researched.
Honest assessment
The strongest reason to visit is that the main attraction reads clearly even if you do not understand the spoken commentary: balancing, percussion and acrobatics carry the performance. For 2026 the city says it has added foreign-language interpreters, a “global guide” service and a team of overseas supporters, aimed squarely at international visitors. That is a genuine change worth knowing, but it is an announcement rather than a checked on-site fact, so this guide still leaves the language-support field unverified — treat any English help as a bonus, not a certainty, and carry the Korean map and programme regardless.
The harder part is scale. The 2024 edition counted about 568,000 visits across its two sites in four days, and Anseong reported the 2025 festival drawing beyond 600,000, with the main car parks filling and the city pushing visitors onto shuttles. Expect queues and slow exits around headline performances, and note that the organiser is planning phased entry when crowds surge. Arriving earlier gives you time to learn the site before the evening crowd builds; using the official shuttle avoids having to solve the last rural stretch yourself. General admission is confirmed free, but bring a separate budget for food and any activity whose price is posted on site.
Matchum Land has room for several stages and evening illumination, but it is not beside Seoul-bound transport. Anseongcheon and the October 1 central-city events make “the festival” less geographically simple than the title suggests. Check every venue line.
The best visit is selective: one full namsadang performance, one additional stage programme, the reconstructed market and enough uncommitted time for movement and a meal. The weakest plan is to treat the grounds as a single two-hour show or to depend on an unverified last shuttle. The physical performance makes the event accessible without understanding every announcement, but English-language assistance has not been verified; download or screenshot the Korean programme and venue map before leaving Seoul.
