Cheongsong Apple Festival 2026 (청송사과축제)

Cheongsong is a rural county in Gyeongsangbuk-do that the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) describes as one of Korea’s leading apple-producing regions. Its apple festival is the 20th edition this year, held November 4-8, 2026, along the Yongjeoncheon Stream in front of Hyeonbiam Cliff in Cheongsong-eup. The county’s theme for 2026 is “Now, Cheongsong! Tinted with Apples”, which it presents as an invitation to come when the apples taste best.

This is a farm-town festival rather than a city spectacle. The programme mixes apple sales, apple-themed games, local-resident performances and a few contests. KTO lists the grounds as open 09:00-20:00 and describes entry as free, with fees for some programmes.

What you actually do here

The festival ground is a broad riverside plain with a rock cliff on one side. In the KTO photographs, tents line the edges, the stage stands near the water, and the open middle is used for group games. Treat it as a place to wander, taste and join in, not a single seated show.

KTO’s Korean record groups the programme into five parts: performances (an apple parade, celebration concerts and volunteer performances), contests, hands-on activities, exhibition and sales, and ancillary events. The exhibition and sales part includes an apple promotion hall, apple cooking displays, a Cheongsong tourism photo exhibition, sales of apples and other local produce, and a surprise apple auction. The ancillary events named are the Cheongsong Culture Festival, the World Confucian Culture Festival and fireworks. No dates or times were given for those three, so do not plan a night around them.

Before the on-site festival there is also an online festival on the Daum portal, running September 24 to November 8. The county reported more than 2.2 million online visitors by mid-October. It is a promotion with games and prizes, not a substitute for the visit, and it has no bearing on gate entry.

The hands-on programmes

Three games recur in both KTO’s text and the official programme page, and they are the easiest way in for visitors who speak no Korean.

• Apple Nanta (“Honey-fun Apple Nanta”). You hit apples in a pocket with a pedometer-fitted bat to release stress, and the official page says it also involves making apple jam. The 2026 price and capacity were not stated.
• Challenge: Apple Sorting Lotto. You sort apples, write the apple’s number on a lottery slip, and a sorting machine is run on site to draw the winners at around 17:00 each day, according to the official page.
• Find the Golden Apple. Balloons are dropped from above and participants look for the golden apple among them.

Contests

The programme pages list a national apple flower-rope weaving contest, where teams each hold a coloured cord and walk around a pole to weave a pattern, and an “Apple Olympics” of three events: peeling an apple in one long strip, guessing an apple’s sugar content, and stacking apples high. KTO also mentions a best-apple contest. All of these are public programme descriptions, but the daily timetable for 2026 was not available, so I cannot tell you which day or hour any of them takes place.

The parade

The Cheongsong Apple Parade is performed and judged by local residents, so it is about neighbourhood groups competing rather than a professional production. The official site presents it as a group contest. Its time and route for 2026 were not published; the photograph here, from a previous edition’s KTO set, appears to show a parade passing along a road beside the stream.

A mock trial for mislabelled apples

One unusual programme is a staged performance in which someone accused of mislabelling the origin of Cheongsong apples is “arrested” and escorted to the Joseon-era Uigeumbu court. The official page describes it as a performance that punishes country-of-origin violations in the manner of a Joseon punishment. It is theatre aimed at promoting honest labelling, and it is easy to follow without much Korean. Again, no 2026 time was published.

Programme and timetable

The only firm timing from official-level sources is the opening window of 09:00-20:00 and the roughly 17:00 apple-sorting draw. A day-by-day performance grid was not on the pages I could read. Some Korean aggregator sites have published singer names by date and say a Black Eagles air display is planned for the last day, but they disagreed with each other and I found no official notice that confirms them, so this guide does not list names or promise an air show. The county’s phone line, 054-873-3686, is the contact KTO gives for the festival.

If a particular performer or the fireworks is your reason to come, wait for the county’s own announcement, because the ancillary events listed by KTO have no dates.

Tickets, fees and booking

KTO’s entry for the festival says it is free, with some experience programmes charged. I found no ticketing system, advance reservation, or price list for the paid activities. Bring some cash for those activities and for purchases, as card acceptance was not checked.

Getting there without a car

There is no train station in Cheongsong, so the realistic public route is an intercity bus. Korean Wikipedia lists a Cheongsong Bus Terminal at Jungang-ro 184, Wolmak-ri, with service to Dong Seoul Terminal, Dongdaegu and Busan. A timetable aggregator shows Dong Seoul to Cheongsong taking about 3 hours 57 minutes, at about 34,800 won, with departures at 08:40, 12:00 and 15:30. Korean Wikipedia lists six daily Seoul departures between 09:10 and 18:10 instead. The two sources disagree, so treat both as rough and check the live timetable for your date.

From the south, an aggregator lists Andong to Cheongsong as roughly one hour at about 6,800 won, but with only a couple of daily trips. Wikipedia lists an hourly service from Dongdaegu. Neither is a substitute for a live timetable.

The festival is addressed to Wolmak-ri as well, the same neighbourhood as the terminal, but I did not verify the walking distance. Put the festival name into a Korean map app before you leave. I did not verify the return departure times from Cheongsong, so do not assume you can leave after the evening programme.

Parking, shuttles and traffic control

If you drive, a Korean press report says the county is arranging temporary parking and shuttle buses for the festival. The lots’ locations, the shuttle route and its hours were not in the sources I found. One aggregator says parking is free, but I could not confirm that on an official page. Check the festival’s transport notice right before you leave.

The county also said, after the 2025 edition, that it would add accessibility facilities and a family rest area for 2026. This is a plan reported in the press, not a verified description of what is on site.

Food on site and nearby

KTO’s festival entry carries a note that its food information is last year’s and is being updated for 2026, so no particular stall can be promised. The one new item that has been reported is the Apple Table, a seven-dish menu created by the county with local businesses and served in the apple promotion hall. Reported dishes include apple cup rice and an apple hot dog from an unstaffed café, apple sandwiches and apple tteokbokki from a café named Munhyang, apple pork cutlet from Cafe Ole, and apple chungmu gimbap and apple boiled pork from a farmhouse restaurant named Mukku. Prices were described only as “reasonable”.

For eating apples themselves, the festival’s whole subject is selling them, and Cheongsong apples are the county’s signature crop. Whether samples are offered was not confirmed.

Day trip or overnight

A Seoul day trip is a poor plan on the evidence available. With a bus ride of about four hours each way, the earliest listed Seoul departure arrives around midday and the grounds close at 20:00, so you would have only a few hours on site, and I could not confirm any return bus. I left the overnight field blank because I could not verify last departures from Cheongsong. If you want a full day at the festival, plan to stay in town, and confirm lodging directly because I checked no hotel availability or prices.

The nearby Juwangsan National Park is a separate trip and is not part of the festival; check its own access before you add it.

Honest assessment

The festival’s strength is that the activities are simple, physical and built around one fruit. Hitting apples with a bat, looking for a golden apple and watching a mock trial of a mislabelled-apple seller need no Korean, and the setting under a rock cliff beside the stream is distinctive.

The weaknesses are access and information. Cheongsong has no train, the bus timetables I found disagree, the daily programme grid and the concert lineup were not confirmed, and food and parking details were still pending when this was written. Do not choose a day for a particular singer or the fireworks, and do not plan a same-day return from Seoul. It is worth the trip if you are happy to stay overnight and treat the programme as a loose, hands-on day among local residents; it is a harder sell if you want a polished schedule you can book in advance.