Performances Favor Festivals, Books Favor Literature: ‘Twenty-Year-Old Tastes’ Revealed by the Youth Culture and Arts Pass

[Financial News] People aged 19 to 20 who used the Youth Culture and Arts Pass preferred festivals for performances and literary works for books, a survey showed. The share of literature among purchases by YES24 customers in their 20s has also grown over the past decade.
According to YES24 on the 17th, 11 of the 18 events that ranked among the top three in monthly performance and exhibition sales under the Youth Culture and Arts Pass from March through August this year were festivals. The figure includes cases in which the same event appeared in the rankings in multiple months.
‘HipHopPlayYa Festival 2026,’ ‘Seoul Summer Beach 2026,’ and ‘2026 Busan International Rock Festival’ ranked near the top. Looking only at the monthly No. 1 events, festivals led the rankings in all six months, remaining at the forefront from spring through summer.
The Youth Culture and Arts Pass is a program through which the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and Arts Council Korea (ARKO) provide cultural funding to people aged 19 to 20. Since the 10th of last month, the pass has also been usable for book purchases. Ahead of Youth Day on the 19th, YES24 analyzed pass usage and book-purchasing trends among people in their 20s over the past decade.
Novels, poetry, and plays accounted for 45% of the books purchased with pass points from the 10th of last month through the 8th of this month. Manga and light novels followed at 15.7%, humanities at 12.1%, and essays at 9.6%.
The top three best-selling books were Yang Gui-ja’s ‘Contradictions,’ Gu Byeong-mo’s ‘Last Jelly Shot,’ and Jeong Dae-geon’s ‘Geuryeu.’ ‘Siddhartha,’ ‘The Odyssey,’ and ‘Norwegian Wood’ also ranked among the top 10.
The number of YES24 book buyers aged 19 to 20 rose 124.7% year on year during the month after book support began. Of these buyers, 66.1% used pass points to purchase books. Among young people who bought books with the pass, 55.5% lived outside the Seoul metropolitan area.
Among all YES24 purchases by people in their 20s, the share of novels, poetry, and plays rose from 15.5% in 2016 to 20.9% in January through August this year. In the top 100 best-selling books among people in their 20s, excluding study materials, the number of literary titles increased from 26 to 36, while essays and self-help books fell from 29 to 15.
Literature’s share has grown not only among overall purchases but also in the variety of books reaching the top ranks. Alongside the success of popular titles, literature appears to be taking up a larger share of the books readers choose.
Cho Sun-young, head of YES24’s book business division, explained, "In reading, people appear to be increasingly inclined to enjoy the ‘story’ itself and discover meaning in their own ways."
[email protected] Jang In-seo Reporter