Seoul Winter Festa 2026 Dates Confirmed (14 December 2026 to 31 January 2027): Seoul Lantern Festival on Cheonggyecheon, Gwanghwamun Christmas Market Hours, the ₩1,000 Seoul Plaza Skating Rink, and New Year's Eve at Bosingak

Last updated: September 2026. The 2026 dates come from the Seoul Metropolitan Government's published 2026 event calendar; the hours, prices and venues below are what the 2025 edition actually ran, from the city's own program pages and its post-festival report, and are the best guide to 2026 until the city publishes the new program, usually in late November.

Search for the Seoul Lantern Festival and the English internet argues with itself: one guide says November, another says "December 11 to January 3 (TBD)," a third says the dates will be announced in September. The city settled the question months ago. Seoul's official 2026 calendar lists Seoul Winter Festa from 14 December 2026 to 31 January 2027, forty-nine days, twice the length of the 2025 edition, which ran twenty-four days and drew 10.98 million people. The lantern festival lives inside it, on Cheonggyecheon, and has since 2024. Everything in this guide that is not the 2026 date is the 2025 program as the city ran it: which nights, which hours, what it cost (almost everything was free), and which subway exits.

Gwanghwamun Square on 11 December 2024, two nights before that year's Winter Festa opened: the market huts, the Winter Festa stage and Gwanghwamun Gate at the top. Photo: Seoul Metropolitan Government via Wikimedia Commons, KOGL Type 1.

The lantern walk is a kilometre beside open water at 7 p.m. in December: Seoul's December nights average −3.4°C at the low, and the stream bed is colder than the street. Koreans go with a 30-pack of INLIFE hand warmers, made in Korea, the same 핫팩 every convenience store sells for about ₩1,000 in winter. As an Amazon Associate, EpicKor earns from qualifying purchases.

Quick Guide: Seoul Winter Festa 2026 at a glance

Why every English guide has the wrong month

The confusion is historical, and it explains the autocomplete: people still type "Seoul Lantern Festival November." For thirteen editions, from 2009 to 2021, the Seoul Lantern Festival was a November event on Cheonggyecheon, run by the Seoul Tourism Foundation (then called the Seoul Tourism Organization): lantern sculptures on the stream for the first three weeks of the month, the year's single best-known night walk in the city. In 2022 the city reopened the rebuilt Gwanghwamun Square and moved the festival there, to 19–31 December, and in 2023 it bundled everything the city had been running separately in winter, the lanterns, the Gwanghwamun lights, the Seoul Plaza rink, the DDP projections and the Bosingak bell, into one umbrella festival called Seoul Winter Festa. The lanterns went back to the stream in 2024. So the festival is a December event now, and the English guides that still say "mid-November to early December, announced in September" are describing something that stopped existing four years ago.

The 2026 length matters for planning. In 2025 the Christmas market closed on 31 December and the main Gwanghwamun light show on 4 January; only the lanterns and the rink ran into the new year. With a run to 31 January, a January trip should get more of the program than it did last winter, but the city has not yet said which pieces stretch. Our Korea festival calendar tracks the month-by-month picture and will carry the program when it is published; festival information is the fourth-largest gap foreign visitors report in Korea's own exit survey, which is why this guide exists.

The Seoul Lantern Festival on Cheonggyecheon: route, hours, exits

Zone 1 of the 2025 Seoul Lantern Festival on Cheonggyecheon, "Moving Light," in the zone the organiser calls Miracle Seoul. Photo: Seoul Lantern Festival via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

The lanterns stand in and beside the stream from Cheonggye Plaza (청계광장), the fountain at the top of the stream a block south of Gwanghwamun Square, downstream to Samil Bridge (삼일교), a little under a kilometre. You walk it on the lower stream-side path, one direction only when it is busy, with staff at each set of steps. In 2025 the lanterns were lit 18:00 to 22:00 at the opening and, from 16 December, to 23:00 nightly, and stayed up until 18 January, two weeks after the rest of Winter Festa closed. Entry is free and there is no ticket.

The 2025 theme was "My Light, Our Dream, Seoul's Magic" (나의 빛, 우리의 꿈, 서울의 마법), built around five zones from Cheonggye Plaza to Samil Bridge, with pieces including the "moment of first light," a giant traditional gat hat, "the light of Cheonggye," a fountain of light, and a royal procession (어가행렬) of lantern figures walking toward Gwanghwamun. The pieces people actually photographed were the eight-horse sculpture at the start and, further down, a hundred Magikarp swimming upstream in a Pokémon collaboration, which is the kind of thing that turns a heritage lantern festival into a ten-million-visitor one. Expect a different headline collaboration in 2026; the format, a themed run of sculptures ending in a procession, has held for three years.

The hundred Magikarp of the 2025 festival, zone 3. Photo: Seoul Lantern Festival via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Getting there. Gwanghwamun Station (Line 5) exit 5 puts you at Cheonggye Plaza; Jonggak Station (Line 1) exit 5 comes out at Gwanggyo bridge, a third of the way down; Euljiro 1-ga (Line 2) and Euljiro 3-ga (Lines 2 and 3) serve the lower end near Samil Bridge. The best plan is to start at the top so you finish near Jonggak or Euljiro, where the restaurants are. On weekends between 19:00 and 21:00 the lower path moves at shuffle pace; on a weekday after 21:00 you walk it freely and the lanterns are still lit for two more hours.

The second site: Uicheon. In 2025 the festival added a northern site on Uicheon stream (우이천), from Ui Bridge to Suyu Bridge on the Gangbuk–Dobong border, lit 18:00–22:00 until 4 January, reached from Ssangmun Station (Line 4) or a short village-bus ride from Suyu Station. It is smaller, residential and uncrowded, and worth it only if you are staying in the north of the city; visitors should do Cheonggyecheon.

Gwanghwamun Market: the free Christmas market, and the one that charges

Gwanghwamun Market in December 2024, the huts laid out at the Sejong Center end of the square. Photo: Seoul Lantern Festival via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

The "Seoul Christmas market" people search for is Gwanghwamun Market (광화문마켓), the rows of red-roofed wooden huts at the north end of Gwanghwamun Square, opened by the city in December 2022 to give the square a night-time reason to exist. In 2025 it ran 12 to 31 December, 17:30 to 21:30 daily (extended to 22:00 from 22 December) and until midnight on New Year's Eve, themed as a Santa village, with 45 booths shared by 135 small-business teams rotating through three "seasons" of the month, selling food, handmade goods and seasonal gifts, plus a gingerbread-cookie house and photo zones. Entry was free and there was no ticket or reservation. The city's report afterwards said the average team took ₩54 million, 87 percent more than the year before, and the market cleared ₩1 billion in total, which is why it will be back and probably bigger.

Two practical notes. First, it is a Korean market with European styling: the food is Korean street food and festival snacks with some mulled-wine-and-sausage gestures, and the crafts are from Korean makers; do not expect Nuremberg. Second, the ticket question that fills the search box comes from a different market. Lotte Town Christmas Market at Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, the biggest in the city, ran 20 November 2025 to 4 January 2026 and was free before 16:00 but ₩5,000 after 16:00 with a photo-print voucher; Atelier de Noël inside The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido was free but needed a Naver reservation. Gwanghwamun has no gate.

Seoul Light: the facade shows at Gwanghwamun and DDP

Seoul Light Gwanghwamun (서울라이트 광화문) projects onto the government and office facades around the square and, in 2025, ran the whole festival, 12 December to 4 January, 17:30 to 21:30 Sunday to Thursday and to 22:00 Friday and Saturday, with a New Year countdown programme on 31 December. The show is the reason to arrive at the square before the market rather than after: watch a cycle from the Sejong statue end, walk the market, then drop down to the stream. The DDP edition (서울라이트 DDP), the "Everglow" media show with Haechi and LINE Friends characters projected on the curved silver skin of Dongdaemun Design Plaza from 18:00 to 21:30, ran only 18 to 31 December in 2025; DDP is three stops east on Line 5 from Gwanghwamun (Dongdaemun History and Culture Park), or a forty-five-minute walk down the full length of the lantern stream and on to Dongdaemun.

The ₩1,000 skating rink on Seoul Plaza

Seoul Plaza Skating Rink, January 2015. The rink returns to the same spot every winter. Photo: Korean Culture and Information Service via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The best-value hour in Seoul all winter. The city floods Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall and charges ₩1,000 for a one-hour session, skate and helmet rental included; a locker is another ₩1,000. In 2025–26 it opened 19 December and ran to 8 February, 10:00 to 21:30 Sunday to Friday and to 23:00 on Saturdays and holidays, with a late session to 00:30 on New Year's Eve (in 2024–25 the rink also ran late on Christmas; check the season notice). Sessions are one hour with a thirty-minute resurfacing break between, capped at 600 skaters, and they sell out on weekend afternoons. Half of each session's tickets are sold online up to seven days ahead and half at the box office on the day. Gloves are compulsory on the ice and are sold at the entrance for ₩1,500 if you forgot. There is a separate children's rink with training aids, a warming tent with snacks, and a row of Korean street-food stalls beside it. The rink closes when fine-dust levels spike; check the day's air quality before you cross town for it. City Hall Station (Lines 1 and 2) exit 5 is the plaza. Our winter travel guide covers the ski resorts if an hour on the plaza is not enough.

New Year's Eve: Bosingak, 33 strikes, and the subway that runs to 2 a.m.

Bosingak, the Joseon bell pavilion in Jongno. On 31 December the bell is struck 33 times at midnight. Photo: Seoul Metropolitan Government via Wikimedia Commons, KOGL Type 1.

Winter Festa's midnight is the Bosingak New Year's Eve bell (제야의 종), the one Korean New Year tradition that happens on the Western date. Bosingak is the bell pavilion on Jongno, a five-minute walk from either end of the lantern stream, and its bell is struck 33 times at midnight (the old count that opened the city gates in the Joseon era), by the mayor and a group of citizens chosen each year, in front of a crowd the city plans at about 100,000. In 2025 the ceremony ran 23:00 to 00:20 with performances first, and Gwanghwamun ran a countdown of its own with the market open to midnight.

The transport arrangements are the thing to know. On 31 December the Seoul subway and the city buses that pass the area run until 02:00 instead of stopping around midnight, the only night of the year the whole network does; Jonggak Station, directly under the bell, is skipped by trains from 23:00 to 01:00 for crowd safety, so leave from Jongno 3-ga, Euljiro 1-ga or City Hall instead; and 47 bus routes are diverted around Jongno from 18:00 to 07:00. Our first and last train guide has the normal last-train times the extension is measured against. Get to Jongno by 22:30 if you want to see the bell rather than the back of a coat; if you only want the atmosphere, the lantern stream at 23:30 with the countdown drifting over from the square is the better place to be.

What the weather actually is, and what Koreans wear to this

Seoul's December averages a daily high of 4.2°C, a mean of 0.2°C and a low of −3.4°C, with about six snowy days; January is colder, a high of 2.1°C, a mean of −2.0°C, a low of −5.5°C and seven snowy days (Korea Meteorological Administration 1991–2020 normals). The lanterns are lit from 18:00, which is already below freezing on most nights, and the lower path along the stream is a few degrees colder still and out of any sun. Koreans do this walk in a long padded coat (the black knee-length 롱패딩 that our long-padding guide explains), a hot pack in each pocket, and often a second one stuck inside the coat; the convenience stores at Jonggak sell them at the counter in December. Snow is a bonus rather than a problem: the lanterns look best on a snowy night, and the city grits the stream path.

Christmas Day, Seollal and the dates that change the plan

Christmas Day is a public holiday in Korea but almost nothing closes for it; it is a couples' night, so restaurants around Jongno and Myeongdong are full from 18:00 and the lantern path is at its busiest of the whole run. Book dinner or eat early. Lunar New Year, Seollal, falls on 7 February 2027, a week after Winter Festa closes, so the 2026–27 festival does not collide with the holiday the way a mid-February trip would; if you extend into that week, our restaurant hours guide explains what closes for Seollal. Bukchon Hanok Village, a short walk north of the square, now has legal visiting hours, 10:00 to 17:00, so it is a daytime stop before the lanterns, not after.

A one-evening plan that works

The whole evening costs ₩1,000 plus whatever you eat. That, more than the lanterns, is the fact the survey-taking visitors were missing: the biggest winter event in the capital does not sell a ticket.

FAQ

Q: When is the Seoul Lantern Festival in 2026? Inside Seoul Winter Festa, which the city's official 2026 calendar fixes at 14 December 2026 to 31 January 2027. The lanterns go up on Cheonggyecheon; in 2025 they were lit from 18:00 nightly, to 22:00 at first and to 23:00 from mid-December. The city publishes the detailed program in late November.

Q: Is the Seoul Lantern Festival in November? Not any more. It was a November event on Cheonggyecheon from 2009 to 2021, moved to December in 2022 and has been part of Winter Festa since 2023. Guides still saying November are out of date.

Q: Is the Gwanghwamun Christmas market free? Yes. Gwanghwamun Market had no entry fee, ticket or reservation in 2025, open 17:30–21:30 (to 22:00 from 22 December) from 12 to 31 December. The Seoul Christmas market that charges is Lotte Town's in Jamsil, ₩5,000 after 16:00.

Q: How much is the Seoul Plaza skating rink? ₩1,000 per one-hour session, skates and helmet included, plus ₩1,000 for a locker. Sessions are capped at 600 and sell out on weekend afternoons; half the tickets are sold online up to seven days ahead, half at the box office on the day.

Q: Does the subway run late on New Year's Eve in Seoul? Yes, until 02:00 on 31 December, along with the buses around Jongno. Jonggak Station under Bosingak is skipped from 23:00 to 01:00, so use Jongno 3-ga, Euljiro 1-ga or City Hall.

Q: How cold is Seoul during Winter Festa? December lows average −3.4°C and January lows −5.5°C, colder beside the stream after dark. Wear a long padded coat and carry hand warmers; the walk is about an hour outdoors.

Sources

• Seoul Metropolitan Government, "Holidays and Annual Events for 2026 in Seoul" (english.seoul.go.kr), listing Seoul Winter Festa 14 Dec 2026 – 31 Jan 2027.
• Seoul Metropolitan Government press release, 6 January 2026, "1천만이 즐긴 2025 서울윈터페스타" (news.seoul.go.kr): 10.98 million visitors, 45 booths and 135 teams, sales figures.
• Seoul Culture Portal, "2025 서울빛초롱축제" (culture.seoul.go.kr): dates, hours, Cheonggyecheon and Uicheon sections, free entry.
• Seoul Winter Festa official program pages (winta.co.kr) and "내 손안에 서울" opening report: Seoul Light and market hours.
• Seoul Plaza, "25–26 서울광장 스케이트장 운영 안내" (plaza.seoul.go.kr) and Seoul Media Hub rink guide: dates, hours, ₩1,000 fee, session rules.
• Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025 제야의 종 타종행사 transport plan (via Kyunghyang Shinmun, 25 Dec 2025): 02:00 extension, Jonggak skip, bus diversions.
• Korea Herald, "Winter festa gets Seoul into holiday spirit" (Dec 2025): DDP dates, rink dates.
• Korea Meteorological Administration 1991–2020 climate normals for Seoul.