What do you get when Sanrio Characters come to Korea’s premier theme park in the spring? The 2024 Everland Tulip Festival! This year’s festival of flowers is a bumper harvest, with over a million tulips and other flowers, plum blossoms in bloom, and a visiting cast of cute characters.
The annual festival returns with a new twist
Everland kicked off its annual Tulip Festival on March 22, bringing back many colored varieties of the uniquely shaped flowers made famous in Holland, now celebrated at Korea’s top theme park in almost equal measure. Held annually since 1992, the festival is a clear and wonderful sign that spring has come again.
As usual, the massive Four Seasons Garden has been planted with tulips of hundreds of varieties. There are also daffodils, grape hyacinths and other spring flowers, totaling around 1.2 million blooms.
Now for the first time, Everland has invited a number of Sanrio Characters to come and enjoy the tulips together with human visitors. Sanrio Characters are popular with people of all generations, from members of Generation Zalpha (a neologism created by adding “Z” and “alpha”) to those in their middle age. The most popular of the Sanrio Characters is Hello Kitty, first created by designer Yuko Shimizu in 1974.
Mingle with your favorite characters
Until June 16, the Sanrio Characters will reside in Fairytown to enjoy the spring flowers and meet their adoring human fans. There are photo zones, attractions, and events taking place in the Sanrio Characters Theme Garden inside the Four Seasons Garden.
Apart from Hello Kitty, the other popular Sanrio Characters on display in various forms and locations are My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, Pompompurin, Pochacco, and Little Twin Stars, all of them cute and popular.
The easiest of the Sanrio Characters to spot is the 7-meter-tall giant but still cute Kuromi. Around Kuromi is a photo zone, ideal for selfies or group portraits.
The extra-large 24-by-11-meter LED screen in the Four Seasons Garden plays videos of the Sanrio Characters arriving in Everland by sliding down a slide made of seven colors. The tulip bed right in front of the screen extends the lines of the slide’s colors, and spring flowers in various colors compose large portraits of the faces of the visiting characters, each measuring between 4 and 6 meters.
Each of the cute and popular Sanrio Characters has found a way to keep busy while at Everland: Hello Kitty has become a perfumer, creating new scents at the Happy Perfume Lab. My Melody has become a florist, as well as hanging out in the photo zone. Kuromi has a themed popcorn truck. Cinnamoroll is managing the Mongsil Cloud Café. Pompompurin is the Fairytown station manager for the festival train offering tours through the Four Seasons Garden. Pochacco is running an ice cream shop. And the Little Twin Stars have a merchandise store.
Every Saturday and Sunday until mid-April, My Melody and Kuromi will make personal appearances in the Four Seasons Garden to take pictures with visitors during special Sanrio Characters Photo Times. What’s more, large outdoor performances such as a fireworks show and parades are being staged to welcome spring. The multimedia show Evertopia blends images, lighting, sound, and special effects with thousands of fireworks to light up Everland’s night sky each day. The parades, namely the Carnival Fantasy Parade and the Moonlight Parade, are being held during daylight hours and at night each day.
More things to enjoy
Visitors who crave more spring air and flowers should make a beeline for Sky Garden Trail, which opened early on March 15 because the plum blossoms are already in bloom. Along this spectacular road, there are 700 plum trees of 11 kinds and various spring flowers in bloom, including several types of plum blossoms.
Details and travel directions can be found on the Everland website.
