May is a great month in Seoul. The warm sunshine and occasional spring breeze makes it nice to travel around. It is also a great month for university students (including me) because mid terms are finally over and you get to relax for a bit before the finals come and it is finally that time of the year for University Festivals!

UNIVERSITY FESTIVALS

2018 Hanyang University Festival

University Festivals or 대학축제 (read: daehak chugje) are festivals held by universities in Korea. At these festivals they usually have  food stalls / food trucks, photo booths, games, events, performances, etc. It's similar to a school cup or pensi (pentas seni) in Indonesia.

University Festivals at Seoul are usually held in May (mostly early to mid May, differs between universities). Not only you can enjoy good food and the festive ambience, at these time they will also  invite guest stars / singers and you can see the performances for FREE - how awesome is that!? 😄

Last year, I only got the chance to visit 2 universities festivals - Ewha W. University Festival and Hanyang University Festival. I had good experience at both but I do have to say I liked Hanyang University Festival slightly better.

2018 Ewha W. University Festival

Ewha's festival is quite nice actually. It has a lot of stalls operated mostly by students clubs that sell food and merchandise for an affordable price. Ewha's festival has that girly-cheerful ambiance in my opinion.

Korean pancake in the making :9

Korean Pancake! 😄🍴

They invited 3 guest singers: Juniel, Sleeq, and Jung Se Woon for the event. It was supposed to be an outdoor event but moved inside the auditorium due to the heavy rain that night.

2018 EWU Festival Performance Line Up (disclaimer: not mine, got this from Ewha Student Council FB Page, credits to owner)

Since I'm technically an Ewha student for a semester, I get the chance to come in earlier and get a spot quite near to the front of the stage, hence I can see them perform quite up close :D

Talent show lineup before the actual performance :D

Juniel 🎤🎸

Here is my low quality video of the performance on Ewha Festival I took with my phone. Should've brought my camera but it was raining and all :(

2018 Hanyang University Festival
Hanyang's festivals was quite different from Ewha's. It is somehow louder and more crowded.. And tbh, it seems more fun 😅.

2018 Hanyang University Festival Vibes - it's more crowded than it seems

Actually Hanyang University invited quite a lot of guest singers for their festival performances but I went there the day when Blackpink and DPR Live performed.

2018 Hanyang University Festival Performance (24/5) Line Up (disclaimer: not mine, got this from Hanyang University Student Council FB Page, credits to owner)

I went there with some friends and we arrived at around 6 pm. Thankfully we still got pretty good seats. We had a nice, slightly up-front view of the stage and I have to thank Hanyang for having the performances be a seated event as I would hate if everyone was standing because then I wouldn't be able to see a thing.

Refreshments! 🍕 - Got the Starbucks Chai Tea for free btw 😁

View from our seats

After we got our seats, the wait begins. As from what I heard usually the guest singers performances will start around 9 pm but that day it started at around 10 pm. We waited for almost 4 hours! It was worth it tho.

BLACKPINK! 💕

The Crowds

The performances were REALLY GREAT! It was a very nice experience for me, to visit other universities festivals and to see Blackpink and DPR Live perform live.

GUEST STARS & SINGERS

There are different celebrities for different universities. Other's from the two university festivals above, here is a little bit of the 2018 university festivals line up - just for references:


There are a lot of famous names here. But the ones I listed here are not all of the singers invited. For further info, you can go search at naver.com

To any exchange student studying in Korea (particularly Seoul) or anyone travelling to Korea in May, do try visiting these university festivals! They are definitely worth visiting!

Some recommended university festivals (according to my Korean teacher and friends) are Yonsei University Festival, Konkuk University Festivals, Korea University Festivals, Hongik University Festival - sadly Ewha is not on this list 😅.

"I WANT TO VISIT / SEE THE PERFORMANCES BUT I'M NOT A STUDENT THERE :("

As far as I know, these festivals are open for everyone. They allow non-students to watch the performance too. Some universities requires tickets to watch the performance but most of them are completely free - you just have to line up to get in. 

Usually the gate to enter the event place is opened first to the students of that particular university and around 1.5 to 2 hours later, they will open the gate for everyone. The students of that particular university do have some privilege. 

Some university also make a special designated area for their students (usually in front / near of the stage) whilst outsider can sit (or stand) on the area behind. It depends on the university so do check the regulation first.

If you want to see your favourite Korean singers, these festivals are really a good chance to see them perform. Usually one university will invite a couple of singers / guest stars and one singer or group usually perform around 4 - 5 songs. Just don't expect a 'concert' concert vibe tho because it isn't, just think of it as a mini concert. 

TIPS

Here are some tips if you want to visit these festivals to see the performances:

1. Check the festival schedule & guest stars line up 

It's easier if you understand Korean a bit or able to read hangeul (korean letters). Go to daum.net / naver.com and type in "20XX 대학축제 라인업" (you can change the XX to the current year). You will see some results similar to this one. Then you can check the schedule of the festivals and the line up for the guest stars for each university. 

2. Check the info on their Facebook page

Pick some of the university festival that you want to go and go to their Facebook page for more info. Just search " XX 대학교 총학생회" (change the XX to the university name) on Facebook. Again, it's easier if you understand Korean. On their Facebook page usually there will be some information about the gate opening hours for students and outsiders and some other info like whether you need to pay for a ticket or not, the time of performances, etc. 

3. Check the location! 

Do note that some of the universities are not in Seoul (for example Sungkyunkwan Univ is located in Suwon which is around 1 hour by subway from Seoul) so you have to plan ahead on how will you get back to your accommodation. These sort of event usually started around 5 - 7 pm for opening performance and around 9 pm for main performance. They usually end pretty late and the public transportation is not open 24 hours so you might consider checking the time for the last bus or train to go back. Another option is to take a taxi back but it can be expensive, depending on where are you going.

5. Come early!

Whether you're a student or not, do come early to get the best spots, especially if the singers or guest stars are very popular in Korea. 

And that's all for this post! Thanks for reading!