Why I am still debating between two unrelated exhibitions at COEX

Getting ready for the fair in Seoul

I’ve been staring at the schedule for the upcoming Seoul Illustration Fair at COEX for the past three days. It’s become a bit of a habit, honestly, checking the list of participating artists and wondering if I should actually go or just look at the updates on Instagram later that night. I remember when I used to get so excited about these events, marking the dates on my physical calendar weeks in advance. Now, it feels more like a logistical puzzle. Getting there is fine, but the sheer crowd size at COEX always makes me hesitate. I recall the last time I went, I spent more time standing in line for a bottled water that cost 3,500 won than I did actually looking at the prints I went there to find.

The weird overlap of schedules

While I was checking the dates, I noticed something quite strange. The International Sleep Healing Fair is happening at the same time in the adjacent hall. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? One hall filled with hyper-stimulating, colorful illustrations and another dedicated to sleep and recovery. I found myself thinking that maybe I should attend both. Spend three hours over-stimulating my brain with all the new art, then head over to the sleep fair to find some sort of white noise machine or ergonomic pillow to fix the headache I’d inevitably get from the noise. It feels like a very modern, slightly ironic kind of irony. I’m just not sure if my social battery can handle that much contrast in a single afternoon.

Trying to justify the travel cost

Since I’m coming from a bit further out, the round-trip travel time is probably going to be around two hours on the subway, excluding the walking time. That’s why I keep trying to squeeze both events into one ticket-purchase day. If I only go to the illustration fair, I feel like I’m wasting the travel time. But if I add the second one, I’m worried I’ll just be wandering through the sleep fair completely exhausted, looking at things I don’t even need. I looked up some of the brands participating in the sleep fair; some are selling these expensive weighted blankets that start around 150,000 won. I don’t really need a new blanket, but the curiosity keeps pulling me back to the website.

The struggle with digital versus physical

I’ve been trying to digitize some of my own work lately, thinking about making my own stickers or simple prints. I spent four hours last night trying to figure out how to cleanly remove the background from a hand-drawn acrylic piece. The results were messy. My edges were jagged, and the file looked terrible compared to the professional prints I see on Pinterest or at these fairs. I thought about buying a subscription to Clip Studio or maybe just settling for some free illustration sites, but none of them feel right. It’s annoying because I have the vision in my head, but the technical gap between my hand-drawn paper and the final digital file feels like a canyon. I even looked into local classes, like one I found near Busan that specializes in caricature and digital conversion, but it was just too much of a commitment for someone who just wants to make a few stickers for fun.

Lingering uncertainty about the whole trip

I’m still not sure if I’ll actually go. Part of me thinks it’s better to just stay home and finish the painting I started in the corner of my room. At least there, the only cost is the occasional tube of paint and the time I spend cleaning my brushes. The idea of navigating a sea of people to see what other people are making feels both inspiring and draining. Maybe I’ll decide the morning of. Or maybe I’ll wake up, see the rain outside, and decide that a quiet Saturday of trying to fix my own file resolution is worth more than the chaos of the COEX halls. It’s an unresolved loop in my head right now, and I’m honestly fine with leaving it that way for another few days.