Discovering Unique Venues for Hybrid Events
Discovering Unique Venues for Hybrid Events
Hello, this is Chris & Partners. 😊 As mentioned in a previous post, the era of the next pandemic, the N-demic, is coming. Accordingly, the MICE industry, in step with living-with-COVID and the N-demic season, is moving to plan hybrid events and offline events. Before the pandemic season, Chris & Partners often introduced travel-related unique venues ✨ through feature articles. In today's post, we'd like to introduce domestic unique venues worth checking for the coming hybrid and offline events. Let's take a look together! 👀
What is a Unique Venue?
A unique venue is a compound of ‘unique’ and ‘venue,’ meaning places—old houses, museums, villages, and the like—themed on a region's unique culture and character. As foreigners charmed by Korea's distinctive look of skyscrapers and old palaces coexisting, and by warm hospitality, began holding MICE events in Korea, diverse unique venues emerged, and existing unique venues also began drawing attention. Beyond unique venues as places to hold seminars, conferences, and forums, there are also various unique venues for travelers wanting to rest within Korea's distinctive culture—hanok, palaces, temples, and more. In this post, let's explore domestic unique venues good for holding MICE events.
Independence Hall of Korea, Chungcheongnam-do
Source: Independence Hall website
The first unique venue to introduce is the Independence Hall of Korea, located in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do. Built in 1982, the Independence Hall is a deeply meaningful unique venue erected with over ₩50 billion in donations from citizens who responded when Japan's history-distortion issue became controversial and public opinion formed that history like the independence movement must be preserved and passed to later generations. Over the 40 years since its construction, it has established itself as a place of history education that establishes a proper view of the nation, spanning exhibition, education, and research. With seven large exhibition halls and historical structures like the Japanese Government-General Building Demolition Park, you can learn our own history. It has a convention hall, auditorium, and meeting rooms for academic conferences and various meetings, and outdoor spaces for large exhibitions and expos against a natural backdrop—a maple-tree forest path, a rose-of-Sharon theme park, the Baengnyeon Pond, and more. At the Independence Hall, various events were held: in 2019 the <100th Anniversary of the Provisional Government Commemoration>, the <Memorial Facilities Expo>, and <Daehangno Arts Theater performances>; in 2018 the <73rd Liberation Day Celebration>, and more.
DMZ Museum, Gangwon-do
Source: DMZ Museum website
Next is the DMZ Museum in Goseong, Gangwon-do, opened in 2009. The DMZ Museum is the world's only DMZ-specialized museum, established with the wish for peace between the two Koreas. Inside, it exhibits halls themed on the Korean War, the formation of the demilitarized zone, and themes of the coming inter-Korean reunification and peace. Outside, sculptures themed on peace—the actual armistice-line fence, tanks, self-propelled guns—are installed, so you can experience vivid traces of history. It also has a multipurpose center where various seminars, academic conferences, and workshops can be held. At the DMZ Museum, events like in 2020 the <Special Exhibition on the 70th Anniversary of the Korean War>; in 2019 the <Kaesong Industrial Complex & Mt. Kumgang Tourism Resumption Peace Conference> and the <Peace Economy Strategy Meeting>; in 2012 the <Korea-Germany Forum>—events with keywords like peace and security—were held.
Tri-bowl, Incheon
Source: Tri-bowl website
Located in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, Tri-bowl is a building that upends the general understanding of architectural space; unlike ordinary architectural space, it's made of a freely curved floor under a flat ceiling. Shaped like three bowls, Tri-bowl represents sky, land, and sea respectively, and is used as a diverse cultural-arts space aiming for Incheon as a cultural city with its citizens. Tri-bowl has actively hosted various exhibitions, festivals, and performances at home and abroad. It's a space well-suited as a unique venue for cultural-arts performances, international exchange meetings, and seminars that can showcase its distinctive architectural beauty.
Oil Tank Culture Park, Seoul
Source: Oil Tank Culture Park website
Located in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Oil Tank Culture Park is a cultural park where the industrial-era ‘Mapo Oil Reserve Base’—whose access and use by the public was thoroughly restricted—returned to citizens through an urban-regeneration project in 2017. The tanks that once stored oil were transformed into open cultural spaces, and a community space for citizens was built using the steel plates of dismantled tanks. A space that represented the oil- and construction-centered industrial era was reborn as an ecological-cultural park centered on eco-friendliness, regeneration, and culture. At the Oil Tank Culture Park, events in various fields—economy, culture, education—were held: in 2020 <2020 Global Week>; in 2019 the <Seoul Circus Festival> and <Architecture Culture Festival>; in 2018 the <International Culture & Arts Education Week>, and more. We've explored unique venues across Korea together. 😊 Beyond the ones introduced, there are many more wonderful unique venues, so if you're planning an event, why not research more places? We hope the day comes when MICE events can again be held at Korea's wonderful unique venues.
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