RESCENE Take the Closing Stage of the 2026 Salam Seoul Festival's Cultural Exchange Concert on 4 September

What happened

The Seoul Tourism Association and the Seoul city government hold the 2026 Salam Seoul Festival at Cheonggye Plaza on 4 September 2026. RESCENE take the closing stage of the cultural exchange concert that starts at 7 p.m. that day. Seoul’s own festival listing says that at the end the K-pop group RESCENE brings the festival to its close, and Yonhap News Agency wrote the same on 30 August.

The order of the concert is on the same page. It opens with the Uzbek traditional music ensemble TURON, continues with three acts of the city’s street-performance programme Seoul Guseokguseok Live — Haegeum Groove, Saemdonaegi and Juyeon — and closes with RESCENE. Travel Times listed the same five acts as the concert’s line-up on 2 September.

The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Cheonggye Plaza in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Seoul’s festival listing gives the admission as free and the intended audience as the ambassadors of Asian and Middle Eastern countries in Korea, visitors from those countries and Seoul residents.

Who is named as organiser differs from outlet to outlet. Seoul’s festival listing names the Seoul Tourism Association as the host and the Seoul city government as the organiser; Bizworld, Travel Times and Seoul Culture Today also name both bodies. Yonhap News Agency and Dong-A Ilbo name only the city. This article follows the official listing.

Why is it trending?

With 4 September approaching, the order of the day came out in the press. The festival opens at 11 a.m. with the exhibition and experience booths. According to Bizworld, the official ceremony at 6 p.m. brings the ambassadors of Asian and Middle Eastern countries in Korea together with senior Seoul city figures for a Silk Road passport performance and a screening of the theme film, and the ceremony is followed by an AI fashion show on the theme ‘Beyond the Silk Road’. The show presents fashion and daily wear from Asia and the Middle East and styling that combines the hijab with Seoul’s fusion hanbok, across four acts. Travel Times wrote that the designer Lee Eon-young takes part and that Gwanghwamun, Hongdae and Seongsu are among the Seoul districts used as backdrops in the video. That the cultural exchange concert starts at 7 p.m. is given the same way by both outlets.

The city had listed the festival earlier, on 27 August, in its September 2026 notice of civic information and events, as a 4 September event run by the tourism industry division of its Tourism and Sports Bureau. Coverage of the festival ran across five outlets between 30 August and 2 September.

What you need to know

• The 2026 Salam Seoul Festival is in its fourth year. According to Yonhap News Agency it is a festival at which Seoul residents and visitors from Asia and the Middle East experience and exchange each other’s cultures, open to everyone free of charge; Dong-A Ilbo wrote that salam is the Arabic greeting for peace.
• According to Seoul’s festival listing, this year’s festival takes as its motif the Silk Road along which the civilisations, people and cultures of East and West once travelled. The same page says Cheonggye Plaza turns into a new Silk Road linking Seoul with Asia and the Middle East.
• The embassies in Korea of six countries — Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — take part and present traditional crafts and dress, Yonhap News Agency reported. Bizworld wrote that the display is held in a national pavilion.
• About 10 Korean and foreign companies certified halal or vegan run food and beauty booths. Bizworld and Seoul Culture Today named Bongchu Jjimdak and El Sole among them.
• According to Travel Times, there are make-up and traditional drink tastings from Asia and the Middle East and a board-game experience, along with photo zones and a prayer room.
• The Seoul Tourism Organization is not a host but a partner. According to Seoul Culture Today, the organisation invites Global Seoul Mate, a group of foreign creators living in Korea, to the festival to introduce the cultural exchange programmes on site and Seoul travel content on their own social channels.
• Last year’s festival was held on 8 to 9 September 2025 at Gwanghwamun Square. The festival history on Seoul’s festival listing and the photo caption in Dong-A Ilbo give the same venue; this year it runs for a single day at Cheonggye Plaza.
• The video on this page is the official highlights of last year’s festival, posted by the Salam Seoul Festival’s official YouTube channel on 23 September 2025. It is a record of the 2025 festival, so RESCENE do not appear in it.