300,000-Won Mats, 6-Million-Won Menus: Controversy Over Speculative "Spot Trading" for Fireworks Festival

[Anchor]

Ahead of tomorrow's fireworks festival, spots across Yeouido Hangang Park are being traded for hundreds of thousands of won. People are laying down mats in prime locations to claim the spots beforehand and selling them for money.

Reporter Cho Min-ki investigated the scene.

[Reporter]

The grassy banks of the Han River are filled with mats.

These so-called prime viewing spots have been preemptively claimed for the Seoul World Fireworks Festival taking place tomorrow, but in most cases, no people are to be found—only notes left behind warning others not to touch the mats.

Warning signs prohibiting such spot hoarding are posted throughout Yeouido Hangang Park.

However, the lawns are packed densely with mats of unknown owners.

On secondhand trading websites, posts offering to sell these claimed spots and mats have been flooding in since days ago.

Depending on the location, a four-person setup ranges from 160,000 won to 300,000 won, with some individuals uploading multiple sales posts.

Citizens out for a stroll in the Hangang Park reacted with shock and disbelief at the unusual sight not normally seen.

[Moon Myung-soo / Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul: This is a public space, so selling it privately for money doesn't make sense from a common-sense perspective.]

[Lee In-jung & Yoo Ho-yeon / Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul: Reselling a claimed spot for 300,000 to 400,000 won really doesn't look good.]

Even if spots are preemptively claimed and sold for money, there is practically no legal basis to regulate this.

[Mirae Hangang Headquarters Official: We won't be collecting and removing them. Because that ultimately leads to friction, and we have to keep avoiding friction.]

When we contacted a seller to buy a spot, the response was not to worry about anything.

[Secondhand Market Seller: Even they (the Seoul Metropolitan Government and police) can't touch them. They can't touch someone else's property recklessly. It would be embezzlement of lost property.]

Amid the absurd situation where spaces meant for everyone to use for free are being traded for hundreds of thousands of won, prices for paid products have skyrocketed.

A 6-million-won two-person menu appeared at a restaurant with a view of the fireworks festival, and a post offering to resell a hotel stay voucher for 3.2 million won was uploaded to a secondhand trading platform.

Posts offering to rent out one's home for hundreds of thousands of won also appeared, while conversely, an increasing number of apartment complexes are completely banning visitor vehicles from entering to prevent unauthorized outside parking.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Reported by Choi Dae-woong | Video Editing by Shin Seeun)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.