Cheongdo Seedless Persimmon Festival 2026 (청도반시축제)

The Cheongdo Seedless Persimmon Festival (청도반시축제) is a three-day harvest festival in Cheongdo County, Gyeongsangbuk-do, built around the local persimmon known as bansi. KTO describes bansi as the county’s representative agricultural product and a seedless persimmon, and the festival as a family event with sales, tasting, food made from the fruit and hands-on activities. For 2026 the confirmed dates are October 16-18, with operating hours of 11:00-20:00 and free general admission.

It takes place at the Cheongdo Outdoor Performance Stage at 1846 Cheongnyeo-ro, Hwayang-eup. In 2026 it shares the site with the Cheongdo World Comedy Art Festival, so the stage programme is part persimmon festival, part comedy and entertainment bill. Local press on October 15 described the two events as opening together.

What you actually do here

The core of the visit is the persimmon itself. KTO’s programme list names a tasting and sales area, a dessert market and a food street. The festival’s own pages list a “Bansi Food Zone”, which was the same food area described in press coverage as a persimmon tasting and sales hall with a dessert market. Persimmons are in season now, so the fruit and the fruit-based snacks are the point of coming. Prices and menus were not published in the sources used here.

Around that sits a set of participation programmes. KTO and the festival’s site list Persimmon Kids Land, a human persimmon vending machine, a “beat the persimmon game boy” challenge, a ginger-vinegar foot-bath experience and a search for a golden persimmon. The official site describes the golden persimmon hunt as a pool activity limited to 30 people per session, first come first served, and the vending machine as 500 won a try. Those two pages are undated and may carry over from last year, so ask at the site before planning around them. KTO also lists a permanent stage with performances and a persimmon ESG experience.

The photos in this guide come from KTO’s festival set. Several show 2025 signage, so they illustrate the format of the event rather than this year’s exact booths.

Programme and timetable

The stage line-up is the clearest part of the schedule, and two or more Korean outlets agree on it.

• October 16 (opening day): the comedy show “Gag Con in Cheongdo” with comedians Park Hwi-soon, Lim Woo-il and Jung Seung-hwan, and an opening-ceremony performance by singers Park Sang-min and Insooni. One outlet reports the opening ceremony at 18:30.
• October 17: the Cheongdo Persimmon Band Festival, an amateur contest with seven youth teams and seven adult teams according to press, plus a comic detective stage show from Seoul’s Daehak-ro theatre district and a set by singer K.Will.
• October 18 (closing day): the persimmon tasting awards, the closing ceremony and a concert by Jang Han-byul and Kim Yong-bin, whose line-up the festival’s site announced.

The official site also carries a timetable by date, but it is published as an image, so show times beyond the 18:30 opening are not given here. Since the grounds are listed as closing at 20:00, treat any evening start time as something to confirm before you travel for a specific act.

The comedy festival adds its own programme. Press describes international acrobatic and magic acts on its main stage and comic theatre and talk shows indoors. Its schedule is separate from the persimmon festival’s, so check which stage an act is on.

Tickets, fees and booking

KTO’s Korean listing gives the fee as free, and the English record says the same. There is no general ticket to buy and no reservation system was found for walking in.

Free admission does not mean everything inside is free. You will pay for the persimmon products and food you buy. A few participation programmes may have a small fee or a queue, and some are first come first served. For questions the organiser lists 054-370-6211 (Cheongdo County) and the operations office at 054-370-2211. Both are Korean-language lines.

Parking, shuttles and traffic control

Parking is the weak point and the county says so itself. Several outlets report that the shortage of parking is the reason for a four-route shuttle bus plan with buses every 20 minutes. Police and traffic volunteer groups will manage the main access roads and the area around the venue. A lot-by-lot parking map and the full list of shuttle stops were not available in the sources checked.

The festival’s transport page lists a service from Cheongdo Station and the Cheongdo intercity bus terminal to the venue, about 10 minutes, every 20 minutes. That page is not dated, but it matches the press description of the 2026 plan. A pop-up on the official homepage announces the shuttle information for this year, so open the official site on the day for the current stops and hours.

If you are driving, expect congestion near the venue at peak times and plan to use a shuttle rather than expecting to park at the gate. Safety checks were reported as done: the county held a joint inspection on October 14 with police, fire, electrical and gas specialists and had the grounds disinfected beforehand.

Getting there without a car

Cheongdo is on the Gyeongbu Line, and the usual choice from Seoul is a direct train from Seoul Station to Cheongdo Station. Timetable listings show ITX-Saemaeul, ITX-Maum and Mugunghwa services, about 13 trains a day, the first at 05:54 and the last at 17:29, with journey times of about four hours to just under five depending on the train. A rail-station write-up also puts the direct trip at about four hours, with only a few ITX-Saemaeul stops at Cheongdo.

The faster option is KTX to Dongdaegu, then a bus or regional train on to Cheongdo. One source estimates 2.5 to 3 hours including the transfer, but that is an estimate, so check the live times for your day. The official site also lists buses from Dongdaegu Terminal to Cheongdo’s bus terminal by three road routes, run by Cheongdo Bus (054-371-5100) and Gyeongsan Bus (053-801-8347). Once you are at Cheongdo Station or the bus terminal, take the festival shuttle.

Day trip or overnight

This guide does not say whether a day trip works, because the return side was not checked. The outbound direct trains leave Seoul between 05:54 and 17:29, and arrival would be roughly four hours later. The festival grounds are listed as closing at 20:00, which narrows the window, but the last train back from Cheongdo to Seoul was not verified. Look up your return in Korail before you commit.

Accommodation was not researched, so no hotel is recommended. The festival’s website has a stay page for Cheongdo, which is the place to start if you want to stay over.

Food on site and nearby

Food on site is organised around persimmons: a tasting and sales area, a dessert market and a food street, plus a rest area with food vendors according to KTO’s programme text. A booth at the festival was described in KTO’s photo set with a sign saying cards are accepted, but that is one booth in a photo, not a confirmed festival-wide payment policy, so carry some cash as well.

Beyond the festival, Cheongdo is known for Hanjae dropwort, a leafy green with a protected regional name, grown near Cheongdo-eup. It is an ingredient you may find in local restaurants rather than a festival item. It was not checked whether any is sold on site.

Other things on site

The Cheongdo Forest Healing Center, run by the Korea Forest Welfare Institute, planned a woodworking booth at the festival where visitors make pot coasters, according to a trade report on October 15. It is one of many booths and its hours were not published.

Honest assessment

The festival’s strength is that it is about one thing and free to enter. If you want to eat persimmon in its home county, see the harvest-season produce and have a day of family activities and Korean stage entertainment without paying a ticket, it delivers that. The line-up is real and named, with comedians, a popular singer for each day and an amateur band contest, and the organisers have a dedicated shuttle plan.

Its limits are practical. Cheongdo is a long way from Seoul by train, parking is acknowledged to be tight, and the schedule beyond the headline acts is only published as an image. Most of the entertainment is in Korean, so the comedy and some of the music will mean little unless you follow the language. A trade-press feature on October 15 described the three-day event as drawing about 350,000 visitors but did not make clear whether that is a past figure or a target, so be ready for crowds at peak times either way. If you go, use the shuttle, confirm the performance times on the official site on the day, and decide on a return train before you leave Seoul.