The Busan Garden Show is a four-day garden exhibition run by Busan Metropolitan City on the Nakdong River floodplain in Sasang District. In 2026 it ran from Thursday October 15 to Sunday October 18, under the theme “A Life with Gardens, Stories Linked by Gardens”. It is a city-led show about garden culture rather than a flower-viewing festival tied to one species, and it has already finished by the time of this update on October 20.
One date warning for anyone who finds an older listing: a national festival-plan list showed this event on October 22-25. The city’s announcement and every news report found say October 15-18, so those are the dates used here.
What you actually do here
The core of the event is a circuit of 40 garden works built for the show. The city groups them into specialist gardens, corporate “ESG” partner gardens, an exchange garden with Seoul, regional artist gardens and citizen-participation gardens. Named items in the coverage include a garden called “Haven” by garden designer Hwang Ji-hae, a “Garden Studies 101” garden involving Pusan National University and four other institutions, ten “Big Palm” gardens chosen through a public competition, and six gardens made by citizen gardeners. A utility company’s partner garden called “Nanuri-seom” on the grounds was also reported.
That mix matters for what you will see. These are show gardens: designed for four days, by different teams, at different levels of finish, and arranged along a riverside walk rather than in a single enclosed garden. Expect to walk between them, and expect quality to vary with the maker.
Programme and timetable
The published list of activities is longer than the published timetable. Reports name a garden concert, a garden conference, a healing meditation session, a reading-and-writing class, a drawing contest, a kayak tour of the Samnak wetland, hands-on garden experiences for children and families, and a garden market. On Saturday October 17 there was a guided walk along the river garden’s Galmaet-gil route. The one fixed time announced was the opening ceremony on Thursday October 15 at 11:00.
No source found gave start times, locations or sign-up methods for the other activities, so this guide does not assign them to particular days. If you plan to attend a future edition for a specific activity, check the city’s notice once the programme is posted.
Tickets, fees and booking
No entry fee was mentioned in the announcement or in any report, and the site is an open public park, which is why the fact card shows free admission. That is an inference from silence rather than a stated policy. Whether the kayak tour, classes or market purchases carried a charge or required booking was not published.
Getting there without a car
From Seoul, the KTX to Busan Station typically takes around 2 hours 40 minutes; faster direct services exist, and times vary by train. From Busan Station you continue by Busan Metro and a transfer to the park’s side of the city, so use a Korean map app for the exact route on the day.
The park’s own visitor page lists the nearest approaches:
- Gwaebeop Renecite Station on the Busan-Gimhae Light Rail: about a 5-minute walk. This is also where the show’s free shuttle ran from.
- Mora Station, Busan Metro Line 2: about 10 minutes on foot.
- Sasang Terminal Station, Line 2: about 20 minutes on foot.
- City buses 123 and 126 stop at Samnak Ecological Park.
If you are arriving from Gimhae International Airport, the light rail runs from the airport through Seobusan Yutongjigu to Gwaebeop Renecite, so it is the more direct way into this side of Busan than going via central Busan.
Parking, shuttles and traffic control
For the 2026 show, organisers pointed drivers to a temporary car park at Samnak Ecological Park’s football pitch C, with a free shuttle bus to the venue. A free shuttle also met the light rail at Gwaebeop Renecite. No shuttle intervals or last-bus times were published. These arrangements applied to the show days; they should not be assumed for ordinary park visits.
After the show: what remains
This is the question most readers will have now. The honest answer is that it is not confirmed. Busan City said the gardens were being built so citizens could keep using and tending them after the event, and that it intends to apply for national garden status for the area in 2029. It did not publish which of the 40 show gardens remain, in what form, or for how long.
The surrounding Nakdong River garden is permanent. Busan registered the riverside area, about 2.5 square kilometres in Samnak, as the city’s first regional garden in August 2023, with four themed zones: wild, migratory-bird, shared and people’s gardens. If you visit between shows, expect a riverside park and wetland walk, not the 40-garden display. The park management office can be reached on 051-310-6027.
Day trip or overnight
From Seoul, a day trip is technically possible by KTX, but the show’s daily hours were not published, so this guide cannot say how much time you would have on site or whether a particular last train works. It is better judged against the exact programme of a future edition. Since the show has finished, the question is mostly academic for 2026.
Honest assessment
The strengths are the setting and the format. A river-delta park gives a long, open walk, the exhibition draws on designers, universities, companies and ordinary residents, and the wetland and kayak programme gives some reason to go beyond the gardens themselves. For a public event, the transit access is unusually good, with a light-rail stop a few minutes’ walk away.
The weaknesses are mostly about information. English-language coverage was thin and repeated the same press-release facts, no official English page was found, and the daily hours, activity times, booking rules and admission policy were not published in anything we could check. Some report details even differ slightly on where in the park the show sat. And because the show was only four days and has now closed, visitors from abroad should treat this guide as a record of what the 2026 edition was and a checklist of what to confirm if it returns, not as a reason to book travel today.
