The first day of the Hallyu Town festival in Brussels is officially over. The festival organised by the Korean Cultural Center runs for two days, both the 17th and 18th of June on the Place de Brouckère in the city center.
We were able to go to the festival during the afternoon, around 3 o’clock. Before that there had already been several games hosted and dance covers performed. You can find the full schedule here.
At Place de Brouckère you can find various foodstands with japchae, kimbap, refreshing yuzu tea and tasty mochi. The weather was really hot and the yuzu tea was very welcome. I definitely recommend the japchae, because that was delicious!
There are also plenty of stands with Korean products like skincare, albums and jewelry. Here are some of the brands we noticed: Noonawon, Be-oo-kay, Banjjak jewelry, Bamko books, Interasia and sulseam.
To add an extra touch we had asked the organizers if it would be okay to hand out stickers with our logo. We got the green light, so if you received a sticker from us, let us know!
Performances
After the Hi-touch of Paul Kim, apparently his very first, the host introduced the first performing group Esang!
The traditional Korean performance was such a treat. The energy was enormous, the crowd was cheering them on like crazy and despite some technical difficulties for their last song, it was an absolute delight!
You can find their Instagram page here.
After Esang, we switched things up with some bubblegum K-pop with the girl group CSR. They’re a relatively new group we’ve written about before, you can check that out here. They performed some really fun tracks and I’m convinced they had everyone charmed during their greetings. It was beyond adorable.
The boys from OnlyOneOf came up next. We actually dedicated an entire feature to them in our magazine. I’m super glad they performed my favorite track by them; ‘Dora Maar’. The crowd went absolutely wild for them and it was great to be a part of it. The fire cannons definitely left an impression with their sizzling performance.
The last stage was by none other than Paul Kim. The balladeer really had the crowd doing the soccer chant after his performance of ‘You before Me’. It was hilarious to see his reaction and he had great banter with the listeners. Despite the sudden onslaught of rain, everyone was really into the performance.
I had a super fun afternoon at the Hallyu Town Festival in Brussels. If you’re free tomorrow, definitely go check it out! It’s free entry which makes it even more accessible.
