After a series of outrageous prices for food at local festivals and apologies from organizers, local governments are scrambling to come up with countermeasures, even going so far as to officially set a price per potato roll.
According to the Gangneung Dan-o Festival Committee on Monday, organizers have begun taking measures to eradicate extortionate prices at the festival grounds, including the clutter of restaurants and snack corners ahead of the millennial festival and UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The brightly lit Gangneung Danwoo Festival Nanjang / Photo = Yonhap News Agency
The main attraction of the festival is the 300-odd nanjangs, about 20 percent of which sell food, and it seems that the organizers are doing everything they can to avoid being caught up in the festival’s controversy even before the festival starts on the 18th.
In particular, the organizers have nailed down the price of potato dumplings, the signature food of the festival, at 12,000 won for two pieces and 6,000 won for one piece, and Dan-o rice wine at 6,000 won per bottle. They’ve also made it mandatory for shops selling fish cakes and skewers to post their prices.
For the 2023 Displaced Persons Cultural Festival,먹튀검증 which will be held until the 11th of this month, the government has limited participation in food sales to mostly local vendors and organized products into tasting portions, which are smaller than a single serving, so that they can be sold cheaply.
In addition, at the Boryeong Mud Festival, scheduled to be held on the 21st of next month, a special management team for beach prices and a center for reporting unfair charges will be operated, and ahead of the Soraepo Festival in September, the Soraepo Fish Market Merchants Association will hold a midnight competition to eradicate scale and origin deception.
Meanwhile, in March, a visitor to Jinhae Gunhangje paid 50,000 won for a whole pig barbecue and 20,000 won for seafood pajeon, but the amount of meat was absurdly small compared to the price, leading to criticisms such as “This is why I don’t travel to Korea.” The Namwon Chunhyang Festival also failed to escape the controversy, with whole pigs with only a few points of meat being sold for 40,000 won and seafood pajeon the size of a palm for 18,000 won, and the Hampyeong Butterfly Festival selling fish cakes for 10,000 won per bowl.
The Jinhae Gunhang Festival Committee, which organizes the Jinhae Gunhang Festival, said, “We will take enforcement measures such as closing down and forcibly removing unqualified businesses and exclude them from entering the festival forever,” and Hampyeong County, Jeollanam-do, said, “We apologize to tourists who were damaged by the fraudulent prices during the Butterfly Festival.”
KBS ‘1 Night 2 Days’ broadcast on April 4 / Photo = Screen capture from the broadcast
In a recent episode of KBS’s “1 Night 2 Days,” a vendor was shown trying to sell a 1.5-kilogram bag of traditional sweets for $70,000 to the cast of the show, who visited the Nutrition Mountain Vegetable Festival in Nutong-gun, North Gyeongsangbuk-do. In response, Nutong-gun issued a public apology, saying, “This issue was caused by the lack of proper management of mobile vendors while Nutong-gun held the festival,” and “We sincerely apologize to the public for the inconvenience caused.