After the countdown reaches zero, magnificent fireworks light up the dark night sky. People put their hands up and shout in joy. It was the site of the Songdo Beer Festival, which was held this summer in Incheon, Korea. The festival was hotting up the summer night.
With the advent of the “With Corona” era last year, festivals have begun to be held in-person again. With Corona, meaning living in coexistence with COVID-19, came out to the world to prepare for the prolonged pandemic situation.
As part of the With Corona policy in Korea, the performance industry has also regained vitality, going back to the way it used to be prior to COVID-19. In-person festivals and performances particularly have been actively resumed for the first time in three years, started by a popular Korean singer PSY’s performance show this summer.
However, PSY’s water-shower concert SUMMER SWAG 2022, dubbed “Drenched Show,” had once faced criticism that it caused a huge re-spread of COVID-19 in Korea.
In early July, the number of new COVID-19 confirmed cases surged back to more than 100,000 while it was on the decline after the introduction of the With Corona policy. It was coincidentally about the same time when PSY's show was just being held in the middle of his national tour that started in July.
The most heated issue was the dampened masks. Due to the nature of the show in which the audience gets soaked by sprayed water during the performance, people tend to take off their masks as they feel uncomfortable with those getting wet, which could naturally lead to high bacterial fertility and inevitable re-spread.
This was sufficiently valid to rise a reasonable doubt that it might be the cause of the situation. Moreover, show reviews by the audience who were tested positive for COVID-19 after visiting the show have been uploaded on the Internet one after another. As if to prove this, the number of new confirmed cases has increased as time goes by.
Some of the audience seemed to be aware of the ongoing situation. Song Yeon-song, a freshman from Maritime University, agreed to some extent on the controversy over the issue. She went to Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival 2022 where a similar event of spraying water during the performance was held.
“Since performances and festivals attract people in a large crowd, it is natural that we cannot help worrying about the pandemic,” she said.
Song recalled that most participants were not wearing masks at the time she was watching the show. She had no choice but to take off her mask as well as it was hard to breathe when water was sprayed from all sides, which made her mask wet.
According to Song, announcements were constantly made to prevent participants from taking off their masks at the site while watching performances, but it was hard to find people following the rules. She explained that the festival was almost out of control, especially when people were eating food and singing along the performance.
However, Song expressed her view that concerns on COVID-19 and in-person festivals are a whole different matter to consider.
“I do not think restricting festivals and abandoning the joy of participation simply because we are worried about the pandemic is a good solution,” Song firmly stated.
She believes that aftermaths when cultural activities all stop are far more fatal than when people stay home for a while after getting infected. As long as we follow the quarantine rules, Song claims that the time would finally come to enjoy festivals in person, little by little.
This was similar to the reason why Kang Sun-mi, the action officer of the Incheon Metropolitan city Culture and Arts Division, decided to resume in-person festival. She took on the role for setting the overall direction and promoting detailed action plans for the operation of Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival 2022 held from Aug. 5 to Aug. 7.
Kang enumerated several reasons why the festival came to be reopened in-person in two years under the theme of “revive.”
“The pandemic is still continuing while two years passed since we have been stuck in a groove, not knowing the end at all,” Kang said. “Unless this is a sort of problem that could be solved immediately, we now need to get out of it instead of being bound by forever.”
She also decided the direction of the festival in consideration of the gradual increase at the festivals around the world, thinking that it would be okay to hold it offline.
However, Kang still had many concerns when planning for the festival as the pandemic was not over yet. She paid special attention to the preparation by placing masks in large quantities and constantly requiring participants to wear those at the site.
Even though there was a definite limit to the direct restriction on each person to put their masks on, the festival came to a successful close despite her concern.
“I felt that the public level of cultural awareness has greatly increased,” Kang said with her eyes full of pride. “Watching the participants gathered and enjoying the performance all together in an orderly manner, I thought this would be the perfect moment that showed our world of culture revived.”