The 4th Webtoon Ibagu-gil Festival is not Busan’s large-scale webtoon convention. It is a compact neighbourhood event held along Seongbuk Market Webtoon Ibagu-gil, a hillside traditional-market street where shopfronts, walls and public spaces have been adapted around comics. Busan Dong-gu’s current announcement schedules the main event for Saturday, October 24, from 12:00 to 17:00.
There is an important date distinction. The Ministry of Culture’s annual regional-festival plan records an October 24-31 range. The newer, detailed announcement confirms the market festival only on October 24, then a linked Webtoon × Animation Week from October 25 to 28 at the Mentaiko Brand Lab. No dependable public schedule was found for October 29-31. If the market festival is your reason for travelling, October 24 is the date to use.
What you actually do here
The main day combines a children’s drawing competition with short participatory activities distributed around the market. The central competition is the Seongbuk Market Webtoon Hyangsi, named after a historical provincial examination. It is divided into kindergarten, lower-primary and upper-primary sections. Kindergarten and lower-primary teams draw a colour character in one panel; upper-primary teams make a black-and-white four-panel comic. The subject is revealed on site.
This is a family competition rather than an open sketch session for every visitor. Organisers recruited 30 family teams in each section, 90 teams in total, with applications running through October 22. The published contest window is 13:30-15:30, although contestants’ overall event schedule begins earlier. Paper, coloured pencils and pencils are provided, and entrants may bring additional drawing tools. Twelve works are selected across the three divisions.
Other announced activities are easier to watch even if you are not competing. Visitors can try webtoon and animation costumes, see university cosplayers, use an AI sketch robot, have a caricature made and enter a retro comics room assembled from old objects, comics and media art. Five Busan universities—Kyungsung, Dongseo, Pusan National, Silla and Youngsan—are participating with the market merchants’ association and Dong-gu.
The AI six-panel webtoon activity is more structured than a casual drop-in booth. Teams first plan characters and a short story, generate scenes, then add speech balloons and sound effects. Sessions are listed at 13:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00, with six teams per session and about five minutes per team. It requires advance registration; no current notice promises standby places on the day.
Programme and the date problem
The October 24 timetable has three useful anchors: the street programme opens at noon, the main-stage opening ceremony is at 13:00, and the closing is at 17:00. The drawing contest occupies much of the middle of the afternoon, while the AI sessions run hourly from 13:00 through 16:00. There is no reason to assume booths continue after the closing ceremony.
From October 25 to 28, the linked Webtoon × Animation Week moves the emphasis away from the market lane to the Mentaiko Brand Lab. The announced material includes webtoon keycap making, AI four-panel comics, an exhibition of selected work from the Busan International Character & Animation Festival, and screenings of selected animations. Operating hours, capacity, prices and a session-by-session grid were not published in the sources checked on October 21.
This separation matters in practice. Someone arriving at Seongbuk Market on October 26 should not expect the October 24 costume activity, drawing contest or main stage. Likewise, the annual plan’s October 31 end date does not prove that something public is running every day through the 31st. Check Dong-gu’s notice board for any later addition, but plan only around the dates and venues already named.
Tickets, registration and food
The current visitor announcement does not list a gate ticket for the public market lanes. It also does not publish prices for individual experiences. That means it is safe to plan for open access to the street, but not to promise that every activity, food item or souvenir costs nothing. Ask at the booth before joining, especially where materials or a printed result are involved.
Advance booking matters for two activities. The Webtoon Hyangsi accepted applications through October 22 and was capped at 90 family teams. The AI six-panel webtoon activity also uses advance booking and has only 24 listed team slots across four sessions. Neither announcement guarantees walk-in participation. Spectators can still see the market, murals, costume activity, retro room and other public areas, but the precise queue system for caricatures and the sketch robot was not published.
Seongbuk Market’s merchants are operating a food area called Seongbuk Nopo, with announced items including sotteok-sotteok, hot dogs, sikhye and buchujeon, plus a rice-cake-pounding activity. Prices, vegetarian handling, allergen information and card acceptance were not available. Carry a workable payment backup, but this guide does not claim that cash is required.
Getting there without a car
From Seoul, the practical long-distance route is a direct KTX from Seoul Station to Busan Station. Current timetable references put typical direct journeys at roughly 2 hours 20 minutes to 2 hours 50 minutes, depending on stops. Use Korail for the exact October 24 train rather than building around one generic duration. Express bus is slower: published transport guidance places the Seoul-Busan journey around four and a half hours before traffic, and Busan’s long-distance terminals still require a cross-city transfer.
Busan Station is much closer to the event area than the city’s outer bus terminals, but the festival is not beside the station. Visit Busan lists city buses 86, 87 and 186 to Seongbukgogae, followed by a one-minute walk to Webtoon Ibagu-gil. From Busan Station, use Naver Map or KakaoMap on the day to choose the live boarding point and route. A taxi is simpler if you have children, drawing supplies or limited time.
The terrain explains that advice. This is a mountainside neighbourhood, not a level plaza around a metro exit. Dong-gu’s official walking-route data describes the Webtoon Ibagu-gil course as 620 metres and about 25 minutes, running from the Seongbukgogae entrance through the market, the Ttodi Dandi rest area and the cartoon experience facilities toward the Dong-gu Library rooftop observatory. Those 25 minutes describe the normal route, not the time needed to stop at festival activities.
Visit Busan lists Seongbuk Public Parking Lot for ordinary visits. No October 24 festival shuttle, temporary lot, road closure or reserved parking plan was verified. A normal parking listing is not evidence of spare capacity during a five-hour event, so public transport or a taxi is the lower-risk choice.
Day trip or overnight
If you are already in Busan, this is a straightforward half-day event. The compact noon-to-five window leaves the evening open, and the location can be paired with other Dong-gu sites without inventing a festival-operated tour. The official route continues uphill toward Dong-gu Library’s Chaekmaru observatory; Visit Busan also places Webtoon Ibagu-gil on the much longer first section of the Namparang Trail.
From Seoul, a same-day trip is possible but inefficient if this small festival is the sole purpose. Expect roughly five hours of rail travel in total, two local transfers and waiting time around a five-hour programme. An overnight in Busan makes more sense if you want a slower hillside walk, other central Busan stops, or the linked October 25 programme. No individual hotel has been checked, so none is recommended here.
A documented Dong-gu food connection
Dong-gu’s official tourism site identifies the Mentaiko Brand Lab as a local gourmet-tourism project based on myeongnan, or salted pollock roe. Its floors combine product sales, food and drinks, exhibitions and a research space. That makes myeongnan a defensible Dong-gu specialty to look for beyond temporary stalls.
Do not confuse that regional connection with the October 24 menu. The announced market food list centres on snacks such as sotteok-sotteok, hot dogs, sikhye and buchujeon. The Mentaiko Brand Lab matters more from October 25 to 28 because it is the confirmed venue for the linked animation week.
Honest assessment
The useful way to judge this event is as a community market festival with webtoon activities, not as a publisher-led convention. Its strongest points are specific and modest: children can enter a structured drawing contest, booked teams can make a short AI comic, and casual visitors can see how a working hillside market has incorporated comic imagery into its streetscape. The setting is part of the experience rather than a neutral exhibition hall.
The limitations are equally clear. The main day lasts only five hours, two of the most substantive activities require advance registration, and the contest is designed around children and family teams. No major creator talk, autograph programme, publisher floor, merchandise market or foreign-language service has been confirmed. Visitors primarily interested in Korean webtoon industry news or famous artists should choose a larger dedicated event.
Crowd numbers for 2026 were not published, so this guide does not label the event busy or quiet. The physical constraints are more certain: it occupies market lanes on a slope, parking is not guaranteed, and the programme converges around a short afternoon window. Arriving before 13:00 gives you time to understand the layout before the opening ceremony and contest. If you miss October 24, treat October 25-28 as a separate programme at a different venue, not as a repeat of the street festival.
