Two things about this festival are not in the older guides. It opens on the eve of Chuseok, which is the holiday when the whole country travels, and Andong’s railway station is no longer where the maps of a few years ago put it.
The Andong Mask Dance Festival runs 24 September to 4 October 2026, eleven days. 27 troupes from 23 countries dance alongside 17 Korean mask dance groups, the ones whose tradition is on the UNESCO list, and ten street theatre companies. It is the one Korean festival built around masks, and the masks came from here: Hahoe Village, half an hour from town, is where the oldest ones were carved.
Where it happens
The ground is the old Andong station in the city centre, now called Jungang Line 1942 Andong Station (중앙선1942안동역, after the line and the year the station opened), with the Mask Dance Park beside it. Stages run 10:00 to 22:00. The old downtown streets around it carry the free performances and the parade. Hahoe Village carries its own programme.
The opening ceremony is Friday 25 September at 19:00 on the main stage, with the overseas troupes entering, a themed performance, a mass dance and fireworks. The parade goes first, from 18:00, from the downtown streets to the ground. The closing night is at Hahoe on 4 October at 18:30, with the 선유줄불놀이 (seonyu julbul nori, “boating and rope fire play”), lines of burning charcoal strung over the river below the cliff.
What it costs, and what is free
The ground is ticketed. Advance sales, at 6,000 won for adults and 4,000 for students, ran until 17 September and are over. At the gate that means 8,000 won for adults and 6,000 won for students, since the advance price was 2,000 won under the door. Every ticket comes with a 2,000 won coupon for the designated shops at the ground and in the old downtown, so the real price of a day is closer to 6,000. The tourism board still lists the festival as free with fees by programme, which is true of everything outside the fence.
Free: the parade, the downtown stages, and the daily mask dance at Hahoe. Not free: getting into Hahoe Village itself, 5,000 won for adults, 2,500 for teenagers, 1,500 for children.
Chuseok
The public holidays are Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 September, the festival’s first three days. That is the busiest travel window of the year, the trains sell out weeks ahead, and the small restaurants close. What is open over Chuseok covers the week. For the festival it means one thing: if you can come from Sunday 27 onward, everything is easier, and the programme runs another full week.
Getting there from Seoul
By bus. From Dong Seoul terminal, on line 2 at Gangbyeon, the intercity bus runs 13 times a day from 07:00 to 18:30, takes two hours 25 minutes, and costs 24,400 won. From the Seoul Express Bus Terminal in Banpo, the express bus runs 18 times a day from 06:10 to 22:00, takes two hours 44 minutes, and costs 24,400 won for a standard seat, 29,200 for the older basic coach and 33,500 premium. Both arrive at the Andong bus terminal on the west side of town. Booking, and which site is which, is in the intercity bus guide.
By train. The KTX-Eum from Cheongnyangni on the Jungang line takes about two hours. Fares and seats are on korail.com, and the KTX guide explains the booking site. Over the Chuseok days expect the trains to be gone; the buses are the fallback, and the last express bus leaves Seoul at 22:00.
The station moved
This is the trap. Andong Station was rebuilt in 2020 in Songhyeon-dong, on the edge of the city, when the line was rerouted. The festival ground is the old station it left behind, in the middle of town. So the train delivers you to a place with no festival in sight.
The good news is that most city buses start and end at the new station. A city bus ride is 1,500 won on a transit card and 100 won more in cash, with one free transfer within an hour if you tap off. From September to December the city is trialling cash-free buses on routes 110, 111 and the two circular routes, so a T-money card is the safe way to pay. The T-money guide covers buying and loading one.
Hahoe Village
The reason the festival exists. 하회마을 (Hahoe maeul, “village where the river turns”) sits inside a bend of the Nakdong River under a cliff, with the thatched and tiled houses of one clan still lived in. Entry is 5,000 won for adults, and a free shuttle runs from the car park to the village gate.
The 하회별신굿탈놀이 (Hahoe byeolsingut talnori), the village’s own mask dance and the origin of the masks in the festival’s name, plays Tuesday to Sunday at 14:00 from March to December in the hall by the village entrance, and it is free. The six acts run an hour, with a ten-minute introduction before and a dance with the audience after.
Buses Express 2 and 210 go to Hahoe from the station and the bus terminal. Plan the afternoon around the 14:00 performance, then the village, and on 4 October stay for the rope fire at 18:30.
Making the days fit
The festival’s own programme changes every day and had not been published in full when this was checked. The fixed points are the parade and opening on the 25th, the 14:00 Hahoe performance every day but Monday, and the closing fire on the 4th. Build around those and let the rest of the ground fill the gaps.
If Andong is one stop on a longer trip, Gyeongju is the natural pairing in the same province, and the festival calendar lays out the rest of the autumn, including Jinju’s lanterns from 3 October. Whatever the tourism board adds lands on the festival’s event page.
The dates, venues, opening ceremony, parade, troupe counts and closing event are from the festival’s announcement as reported in the Gyeongbuk press on 17 September 2026 and from the festival’s own site, read 18 September 2026. Ticket prices, the advance sale period, the coupon and the sales channels are from the city’s announcement of the advance sale as reported on 19 August 2026; the gate price is the advance price plus the 2,000 won difference the announcement states. Performance hours and the tourism board’s “free, fees vary by programme” line are from the Korea Tourism Organization’s English listing. Hahoe Village fees, the free shuttle, the Byeolsingut Talnori schedule and the buses to the village are from Andong’s official tourism site; the city bus fare, the card discount and the transfer rule from the city’s transport page and tourism site; the cash-free trial from Korean press of 17 August 2026. Bus frequencies, times and fares from Seoul are from the public timetable data published 10 and 12 September 2026. The station’s 2020 move to Songhyeon-dong is from railway press coverage of the new station. The KTX-Eum fare is not given because Korail’s booking site could not be reached when this was written.
