The Seoripul Music Festival wrapped up Sunday night with a community cleanup parade along Banpo-daero; a YouTube Shorts video of last year's post-festival cleanup has racked up about 6 million views.
"This one photo says it all."
The "Seoripul Cleanup Parade" rolled through the Banpo-daero area on Sunday night.
Seoul's Seocho-gu said it closed out this year's Seoripul Music Festival with the parade, a joint effort by environmental sanitation workers and local residents.
The district first drew widespread attention last year when it staged the post-festival cleanup as a parade-style procession after the Seoripul Music Festival ended.
A YouTube Shorts video the district produced, titled "Back to Everyday Life," racked up about 6 million views and resonated with viewers at home and abroad. The clip captured sanitation workers quietly restoring Banpo-daero to its normal state after the glittering festival had wound down — an unexpectedly moving sight. Online reactions were enthusiastic: "Cleaning is an art form," "K-Cleanup Avengers," and "I come to the festival every year just to see this" were among the comments, with many praising it as a new form of urban cultural content that fuses cleanup with celebration.
Building on that response, the district elevated the concept this year into a participatory cleanup parade — the festival's final official program. A total of 112 people took part, including sanitation workers, water-truck drivers and 32 residents recruited in advance. After a safety briefing, they picked up cleaning tools and began tidying the festival grounds before the parade got underway.
The full parade launched at 9:30 p.m. along Banpo-daero, with five water trucks, 20 Seoripul rapid-response motorcycles and three compact street-sweepers rolling out to give spectators an unusual treat. Residents heading home lined the boulevard, cheering and applauding — transforming what had been "a festival someone else cleans up" into "a festival everyone finishes together."
One resident who joined the parade with her child said she hoped the tradition would spread to other parts of the country. "Being up close and feeling the hard work of the sanitation workers who keep our daily lives running — and wrapping up the festival together with them — is a meaningful culture I'd love to see catch on elsewhere," she said.
This year's Seoripul Music Festival, held over the weekend along Banpo-daero, drew 280,000 attendees and concluded safely and smoothly. The district said it plans to continue building festival content rooted in community participation — including the cleanup parade — to sustain a clean and dignified urban culture.
Seocho-gu District Mayor Jeon Seong-su said that while last year's cleanup parade had delivered unexpected joy to onlookers, this year's edition carried deeper meaning through residents' direct involvement. "I hope the cleanup after a festival — the process of returning to everyday life — takes root as a festival tradition that reflects the dignity of our city," he said.
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
