Everland taps football, tacos to woo visitors this summer

Everland workers pose in front of the amusement park's football-themed festival event. Courtesy of Everland

At Everland, Korea’s largest theme park, the summer’s biggest entertainment draw isn’t a new roller coaster. Instead, it is a calculated fusion of international sports culture and Mexican street food.

Samsung C&T’s Resort Group, which runs the sprawling park just south of Seoul, announced on Thursday a monthlong football-themed festival titled “Football & Taco.” The initiative is the latest installment of the park’s marketing strategy, designed to tap into global sports enthusiasm during the World Cup tournament season.

At the center of the transformation is the “Football Training Camp,” an interactive pavilion near the park’s Alpine Village. Visitors register as players to tackle challenges as strikers, midfielders and goalkeepers. Rather than just offering casual recreation, the park has gamified the experience so that participants gain points through challenges like football bingo to win rewards like priority ride passes and exclusive team merchandise.

Everland has also enlisted professional athletes. Members of the Korean freestyle football squad Lycat Crew, including notable performers Lee Hyun-yong and Park Jin-seok, are leading skills workshops and hosting group training sessions.

The park is retailing collaborative merchandise developed with the Suwon Samsung Bluewings football club, while Jack, a character from Everland’s native "Lenny & Friends" franchise, roams the grounds in full athletic kit.

A row of food trucks will be part of a "Mexican Food Street" to serve up tacos, elote, and grilled shrimp to hungry fans.

Even the park’s zoological division has been drafted into the campaign so that visitors to Everland Zoo can participate in match-prediction events tied to behavioral enrichment programs for the park’s tigers, seals, sea lions and chimpanzees.

As theme parks worldwide seek novel ways to sustain foot traffic, Everland is betting that a football-loving public, lured by the promise of athletic glory and street food classics, will keep its turnstiles spinning all June.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.