[Yonhap]
[Yonhap]

Kim Min-ji, 33, an office worker who attended the outdoor music festival Beautiful Mint Life 2026 on May 30, said she spent most of the day waiting in lines rather than watching performances.

She waited an hour to receive her entry wristband, an hour and a half to order food such as spicy fried chicken, and more than 30 minutes for the restroom.

"The space was so cramped and there were so many people the moment I walked in that I could barely breathe," Kim said. "It was hard to actually watch the performances, and I'm not sure crowd safety was properly managed."

Beautiful Mint Life has been held annually at Seoul Olympic Park since 2010, with the exception of 2020, when it was canceled due to COVID-19.

This year, the festival moved to Culture Tank in Mapo-gu after the Olympic Park's 88 Lawn Plaza became unavailable due to renovation work.

Complaints began to mount over what attendees described as an excessive number of people crammed into a venue too small to accommodate them.

Posts on X, formerly Twitter, read: "There were way too many people for the space — everyone ended up sitting on the grass or on hillsides" and "It seems like they sold far too many tickets without considering the venue's capacity."

Comments on MPMG's official Instagram account echoed the frustration: "The festival ended while I was still in line," "Ticket prices went up, they forced more tickets on people, and audience satisfaction has hit rock bottom," and "Please limit the number of people and actually manage the crowd."

Allegations have also emerged that the organizer sold more tickets than the venue could hold.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, MPMG — the festival's organizer — submitted a project plan when applying to use Culture Tank stating it would accommodate a total of 20,000 visitors over the two festival days of May 30 and 31.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government reviewed the plan and approved the venue use after deliberation.

Culture Tank covers approximately 13,500 square meters, with a standard daily capacity of around 11,250 people. KOPIS, the Korea Performing Arts Box Office Information System, also puts the venue's total daily seating at 11,180.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government estimates, however, that actual attendance over the two days exceeded 30,000.

According to KOPIS, tickets sold for the Beautiful Mint Life dates at Culture Tank totaled 14,610 on May 30 and 14,845 on May 31 — a combined 29,455 over the two days.

That figure far exceeds the 20,000-person capacity MPMG stated in its original project plan.

In response, MPMG said it had notified the Seoul Metropolitan Government before the event — after submitting the initial plan — that it intended to raise the daily capacity to 15,000, for a total of 30,000 over two days.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government, however, said it conducted its review based on the original plan and had asked MPMG to resubmit a revised plan with enhanced crowd safety measures, but that it never approved the capacity expansion.

The city added that even if MPMG admitted more visitors than the approved limit, no immediate sanctions are available under current regulations.

Instead, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said it plans to verify actual attendance through a post-event report and factor the findings into any decision on whether to approve MPMG's application to use Culture Tank next year.

Even that figure may understate true attendance, however, as complimentary guests are excluded when MPMG reports visitor numbers to the city.

Critics also noted that ticket prices rose from last year while the experience for attendees got worse.

A single-day ticket for this year's Beautiful Mint Life cost 130,000 won (about $94), up 7.4 percent from 121,000 won last year.

"I paid a lot of money to go, but it felt like I spent the whole time standing in lines," said Oh, 32, another office worker who attended. "I don't think I'll go back."

Experts called on festival organizers to prepare more rigorously for events that draw large crowds.

"There needs to be a culture where event organizers take responsibility, run multiple simulations, and go into an event ready to handle a wide range of situations," said Ha Jae-geun, a popular culture critic.

On this, an MPMG official said: "Because the festival was held at a new location instead of Olympic Park, entry took longer and people may have felt there were more people than usual. The pedestrian pathways were narrow, but there were no major issues in fact."

The official then added that the company would take the incident as an opportunity to gather audience feedback and look for ways to improve going forward.

Beautiful Mint Life was launched in 2010 as a spring counterpart to the Grand Mint Festival, a flagship autumn music festival, and has been held annually since.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com