Wonju Tattoo 2010

Here is a quote from the official Wonju website:

"Wonju Tattoo is a global military band festival that was created as part of the New Millennium Project in 2000. Through the “World Peace Fanfare” of 2000 and 2002, the uniqueness and importance as a cultural project of military brands were recognized. Thus, in June 2003, it was officially approved as an international event by the government and became the nation’s only military band festival."

And that's what it is. It's a military maraching band festival. I'll be quite honest, when I first heard the term marching band festival, I thought...OMG....how boring...man was I proved wrong!

We attended the festival on the closing night, and what an awesome event it was. We were lucky to get there a little early, as the tickets were selling out fast for the relatively small Tattoo Stadium. We didn't get the tickets we wanted, so we had to settle for tickets one 'class' down, which were still fantastic. And the price...ridiculous....ridiculously cheap. We paid 3000Won for our tickets, which is about $3 or R20.
We got inside the stadium, found our seats with the help of a super friendly usher, and got comfy.

I'm not going to bore you by trying to tell you what these bands did, and how great their performances were, because I just won't be able to do them justice. I will tell you that the show was incredibly varied, with performances from bands from the Phillipines, Russia and New Zealand, to name a few. And all of them were excellent, although it must be said that some were more excellent than others!

We do have many photos of the event and Claudia also made some videos, and we will put them up on the blog in the near future, so keep checking for the update!

Unfortunately we have heard a rumour that due to lack of support this years Tattoo Festival might be the last. We can only hope that this isn't true!

Watch this space...