Seoul International Fireworks Festival History: 22 Shows, 5 Lost Years and the 2026 Night

Once a year, roughly a million people walk onto a strip of riverbank in the middle of Seoul, sit on plastic mats for six hours, watch seventy minutes of explosives, and then all try to get on Line 5 at the same time. It is the largest single-night crowd the city regularly produces, and it is paid for, in full, by one company.

This is the history of that night - which years it ran, which years it didn’t and why, what changed after Itaewon, and how a free festival ended up with a ₩500,000 ticket resale problem. It ends with what a visitor can actually plan around. Where a figure is an organiser’s estimate rather than a count, it says so.

What happened at the 2026 festival?

The 2026 edition was held on Saturday 5 September, with an eve programme on Friday 4 September. Seoul city’s notice gave the main-day programme as 13:00-22:00, and the fireworks as 20:00-21:10: fifteen minutes from the UK team, fifteen from the US team, and thirty from Hanwha to close.

The foreign teams were Pyrotex Fireworx from the UK and Ace Pyro from the US, according to Asia Economy’s preview. Hanwha’s finale was titled “Puzzle of Light” and built around Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, with matching bursts fired from both sides of Wonhyo Bridge and text effects spelling out “SEOUL” and “WE ARE HANWHA”. Hanwha had said it would use the bridge for tower-style fireworks for the first time.

The date was the headline before the show was. For most of its life the festival has been an early-October fixture, and it had already slid to 27 September in 2025. In August 2026 Hanwha moved it three weeks earlier again, citing the Chuseok holiday calendar and demand from autumn foreign visitors. Anyone who remembered “October” and flew in for it missed it.

Why does an explosives company run Seoul's biggest party?

Because fireworks are, literally, the family business. Hanwha was founded in 1952 by Kim Jong-hee as 한국화약 - Korea Explosives - and only took the name Hanwha, a contraction of the old one, in 1993. Hanwha’s fireworks unit had already done the displays for the 1986 Asian Games, the 1988 Seoul Olympics and, later, the 2002 World Cup.

The company treats it as a social-contribution budget line, not a commercial event. The spend has grown with the crowd: Korean press described the 2024 festival as a roughly ₩10 billion show, and the 2026 edition at ₩13 billion. The safety slice alone rose from ₩3.85 billion in 2025 to ₩4.5 billion in 2026.

Which years was it cancelled, and why?

The festival started in 2000, but 2026 was only its 22nd edition. Five years were lost, and each one maps neatly onto a national mood.

Just as useful is what did not cause a cancellation. The 2022 festival took place on 8 October, three weeks before the Itaewon crowd crush of 29 October. It was not cancelled that year, and the festival has run every year since. What Itaewon changed was the 2023 edition’s crowd control, covered below.

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Every edition, 2000-2026

The early years looked quite different. Until 2005 the festival was spread across several weekends, with two to five shows a season; from 2007 it settled into the single-night format visitors know now. The 2002 edition was moved to May and June and run as an official World Cup cultural event.

📅 Seoul International Fireworks Festival by year. Crowd figures are organiser estimates where given; blank where no reliable figure was found.

Year	Date	Foreign teams (plus Korea)	Notes
2000	4 Saturdays, 7-28 Oct	USA, Japan, China	1st edition
2001	-	-	Cancelled after 9/11
2002	25 May-23 Jun	USA, Australia, Japan, China, Italy	World Cup cultural event
2003	27 Sep-11 Oct	Japan, Australia, China	Three shows
2004	9 and 16 Oct	China, Australia, Italy	Two shows
2005	22 and 29 Oct	China, Italy, USA	Two shows
2006	-	-	Cancelled after North Korea’s nuclear test
2007	13 Oct	USA, Japan	Single-night format from here
2008	4 Oct	Hong Kong
2009	-	-	Cancelled, H1N1 pandemic
2010	9 Oct	China, Canada
2011	8 Oct	Japan, Portugal
2012	6 Oct	Italy, USA, China
2013	5 Oct	Canada, Japan, France
2014	4 Oct	UK, China, Italy
2015	3 Oct	USA, Philippines	A worker drowned during preparations
2016	8 Oct	Japan, Spain
2017	30 Sep	USA, Italy	Moved earlier for Chuseok
2018	6 Oct	Spain, Canada	Went ahead despite a typhoon threat; about 1m
2019	5 Oct	China, Sweden	Last show before COVID
2020	-	-	Cancelled, COVID-19
2021	-	-	Cancelled, COVID-19
2022	8 Oct	Japan, Italy	First in three years; about 1m
2023	7 Oct	China, Poland	Poland’s show failed to fire; about 1m
2024	5 Oct	USA, Japan	First paid seats; 1.07m (Hanwha)
2025	27 Sep	Italy, Canada	Moved for Chuseok; about 1m (Hanwha)
2026	5 Sep	UK, USA	22nd edition; about 1m (Hanwha)

Which shows are people still talking about?

Not every memorable night was a good one.

• 2015 was the saddest. A contract worker fell into the Han River while moving equipment between barges two days before the show and was found dead on 4 October; Kyunghyang Shinmun reported he had not been wearing a life jacket. The festival went ahead.
• 2018 nearly didn’t happen. Typhoon Kong-rey was heading for the peninsula that week, but the show ran - roughly 100,000 shells, with a Spanish team founded in 1880 and a Canadian multiple world champion - and Seoul Shinmun still reported about a million viewers.
• 2023 is remembered for a gap. Poland’s team was due second, and its display simply did not fire; the slot was skipped and the show moved straight on to Hanwha.
• 2026 will be remembered for the date, and for being the most expensive edition so far.

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How did crowd control change after Itaewon?

The short version: the 2023 festival, held a few weeks before the first anniversary of the Itaewon crowd crush, was run as a public-safety operation first and a party second. Aju Business Daily reported that fourteen government agencies ran joint inspections, cars were banned from the stretch between Mapo Bridge and the 63 Building, food delivery and Seoul’s public bikes were suspended in the area, and exits at Yeouinaru Station were shut in the evening. Seoul Shinmun put the safety personnel at 5,400, about 60% more than the year before.

Each year since has added a layer. In 2024 Hanwha said its paid-seat revenue would go entirely to extra safety staff. In 2025 the fireworks were spread wider - from Wonhyo Bridge out to Mapo Bridge and the Hangang Railroad Bridge - specifically to spread the crowd along the bank. In 2026 Hanwha fielded about 5,000 staff including 1,200 employee volunteers, and ran a crowd-density app, 오렌지세이프티 (Orange Safety), fed by telecom data and CCTV.

Why does a free festival have a ticket-scalping problem?

The festival is free, and the riverbank is first come, first served. That has always created a quiet market in space. Mats go down in the morning. By the 2020s, spots were being sold outright: for 2026, Seoul Ilbo found a four-person spot advertised for ₩400,000 on a second-hand app, and 107 cases of illegal spot-claiming across the eve and main day. Seoul city cleared away mats laid out in advance.

Hanwha’s answer, in 2024, was to sell some seats itself: 2,500 seats at ₩165,000 each, tax included, through Ticketlink. The company said the money would fund additional safety staff, and it came to around ₩300 million. The response was mixed - convenient for some, a fence around a public park for others - and the seats were resold at a mark-up almost immediately.

For 2026 the paid area moved to Nodeul Island, split into zones priced ₩110,000, ₩165,000 and ₩220,000, with a five-ticket limit per person. Seoul Ilbo still found tickets resold for around ₩500,000.

What happens to the rubbish?

A million people and a six-hour wait produce a predictable result. Seoul Shinmun reported about 70 tons of rubbish collected from Yeouido and Ichon parks after the 2023 festival, up from about 50 tons in 2022, with volunteers going through about 9,000 large bags. After the 2024 edition, Hankyung described parks strewn with disposable mats and cups, and bins overflowing before the show had even started. In 2026 Seoul Ilbo put the leftover at “dozens of tons”.

In 2025 and 2026 roughly 1,200 Hanwha employees stayed behind to clear it overnight, alongside city workers. Since 2025 the organisers have also asked viewers for a ten-minute “clean time” after the finale, picking up what is around them before leaving. It is also the best way to avoid the worst of the station crush.

There is a wider debate brewing, too. In December 2025 a citizen petition asked Seoul to replace the fireworks with drones, citing noise, fine dust and stress to birds and pets. Seoul city said it was not in favour of scrapping the festival.

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Where do Seoulites watch the fireworks from?

The launch area sits around Wonhyo Bridge, between Mapo Bridge and the Hangang Railroad Bridge. That gives the city four classic vantage points, each with a different trade-off.

📍 Yeouido Hangang Park 📍 Ichon Hangang Park 📍 Nodeul Island 📍 63 Building

One warning from 2024: Hankyung reported people wandering into Yeouido apartment blocks to watch from corridors, and drivers stopping on Gangbyeon-bukro to film. Neither is a vantage point. If you want a room with a view, our guide to hotels in Yeouido and Mapo is the place to start, and book as soon as the date is out.

When is the next Seoul fireworks festival?

As of 23 September 2026, the 2027 date has not been announced. What the record shows is this: the default has been a Saturday in early October, but in three of the last ten editions (2017, 2025, 2026) Chuseok pushed it into September. Hanwha announced the 2026 date on 6 August, about a month ahead, and the paid seats went on sale only two days before the show.

If your trip does not line up with the festival, a Han River cruise is the reliable fallback - some run their own onboard fireworks programmes through the season. For the rest of the river, see our comparison of Seoul’s 11 Hangang Parks, the stories behind the Han River bridges, where to eat in Yeouido, and our roundup of Korea’s autumn festivals. If you are heading home late, read how to get around Seoul after midnight first.