Seoul Toy Festival Squeezes 30 Tables, a Folklore Creature Show and a Resin Zone Into a Shopping Mall

The first Seoul Toy Festival runs 19 to 25 October on the sixth floor of the new wing of Mario Outlet Building 1 in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul. G-Valley Times describes 30 table booths where artists and brands show and sell art toys, character figures and related pieces.

Organiser Kaipro Studio says the booths will carry limited-edition art toys, new releases and collaboration pieces. Press photos published by G-Valley Times show alpaca figures in colourful woolly hats, a turtle with moss and shell texture, and a rat dressed as a jiangshi, the hopping vampire of Chinese folklore.

Two features stand out. "Yosu City in Seoul" is a show within the show, made with the sculpture collective 357PARTMENT, that turns goblins and strange beings from Korean folk tales into characters, art toys and sculptures. A separate resin toy zone lets visitors see scale, paint and sculpting detail in person, rather than judging a piece from a phone screen.

Kaipro's chief operating officer, Cheon Chang-wook, told The Herald Business he wants an event where "visitors can look at work up close, ask questions, and artists can explain what they made." The Herald adds that the mall setting is deliberate, to reach ordinary shoppers as well as collectors.

For artists the entry bar is low: G-Valley Times reports a table booth costs 110,000 won including VAT, with a 180 cm table and one chair. Kaipro says it plans to run the festival regularly.

Cheon worked at an MMA agency before this, and the Herald says he helped Choi Mu-bae reach Pride FC and Kim Dong-hyun reach the UFC.