Cheonan to hold culture expo in June

Acting Cheonan Mayor Kim Seok-pil speaks during a press conference for the upcoming 2025 Cheonan K-Culture Expo at Cheonan City Hall in South Chungcheong Province, Monday. Courtesy of Cheonan City

The city of Cheonan will host a culture exhibition utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) technology next month.

The South Chungcheong provincial city officials said Tuesday that Cheonan will host and organize the 2025 Cheonan K-Culture Expo with the Independence Hall of Korea and the Cheonan Foundation for Arts and Culture starting June 4.

The five-day event is the third of its kind to showcase the country’s pop culture through exhibitions, performances and digital content.

For this year’s event, the city has decided to expand its previous five exhibition halls to seven. All the exhibition halls are expected to feature AI, AR, interactive content and extended reality (XR) to strengthen visitors’ experience in immersion.

Last year, it showcased digital content related to food, webtoons, beauty and hangeul (the Korean alphabet), and this year, it has added visual and game content.

In the beauty content exhibition hall, visitors can experience personalized cosmetic products tailored to their skin type using AI technology. In the hall for visual content, visitors can produce a movie using interactive technologies.

The game hall will feature an AR gaming zone using AI and XR technologies, as well as a board game zone and an experience booth for indie games and 3D character modeling.

Visitors can participate in webtoon creation at the webtoon exhibition hall while the hangeul hall introduces the history and beauty of the Korean alphabet during the five-day event.

It also offers a variety of performances that people of all ages can enjoy. In addition to the opening concert, the event features an original soundtrack music show, a retro music performance for older adults and a live broadcast of the radio show “Wendy’s Young Street.” The musical “Catch! Teenieping” will also be performed for children.

Cheonan named lyricist Park Noa, this year’s Miss Hanbok Contest winner Lee Hee-bin and Naver Webcomic artist Grimzo as this year’s Cheonan K-Culture Expo honorary ambassadors.

“This year’s event emphasizes the visitor experience where people can enjoy a variety of the country’s culture,” acting Cheonan City Mayor Kim Seok-pil said. “Cheonan will do its best in preparation for the event.”

Traditional folk singer Song So-hee performs during an opening ceremony for the 2024 Cheonan K-Culture Expo at the Independence Hall of Korea in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, May 22, 2024. Courtesy of Cheonan City