[Edaily Reporter LEE SEON-WOO ] The bidding process for the “Island Day” (August 8) commemorative event in Yeosu, Gwangju, South Jeolla Province—which has been underway since January of this year—has been held three times due to controversies over the leakage of evaluator information and conflicts of interest. It was revealed that an evaluator who had previously received work from a specific company participated in the evaluation, and that a company already contracted for another project had participated in the bidding using information obtained in advance.
The “Yeosu World Island Expo,” which had raised concerns about inadequate preparation even before its opening, also faced fairness controversies, including allegations that points were unfairly funneled toward a specific company during the selection process for the comprehensive operating agency. In Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, a re-bid was conducted after it was belatedly revealed that an evaluation committee member with a history of consulting for a specific company had participated in the evaluation for the “2027 Nonsan World Strawberry Industry Expo” operational agency selection tender held last June.

Controversies over fairness and transparency are mounting in public bidding processes conducted by local governments to select operating agencies for events such as regional festivals and expos. Critics point out that systems designed to ensure fair competition—from the selection of evaluation committee members to information management and the prevention of conflicts of interest—are not functioning properly.
◇Re-bidding Rate Jumps to 13.3%… Event Preparations Disrupted
According to an analysis commissioned by this newspaper from Clowant, an AI (artificial intelligence)-based bidding solutions company, a total of 6,419 bidding notices for event management services—including festivals and performances—were posted by local governments last year (2025) on the Korea Public Procurement Service’s National Integrated Electronic Procurement System (Nara Jangteo). Based on the advertised contract value, the market size alone reached approximately 1.4 trillion won.
Of these, after excluding 437 cases that were canceled due to sole bids or a lack of bids, 347 notices were found to have been re-tendered for reasons such as “ineligibility.” This represents 5.4% of the total number of tender notices, nearly double the 178 cases recorded a year earlier in 2024. There were 136 re-bid notices in the first half of this year alone, exceeding 76% of the total number for 2024 with half the year still remaining.

Apart from re-bids, 347 announcements were canceled in the first half of this year due to reasons such as ineligibility or changes to business plans. This figure has already surpassed last year’s total of 308 canceled announcements. Cho Jun-ho, CEO of Client, stated, “While it is difficult to attribute all re-bids solely to ineligibility, the increase in the number of cases can be seen as a sign that procedural issues are recurring in the bidding process for local government events.”
Critics from local governments and the industry point out that the public bidding system, conducted under the “Enforcement Decree of the Act on Contracts to Which Local Governments Are Parties,” has limitations in ensuring fair competition. This is because the pool of candidates may be exposed to the public during the open recruitment process, and since anyone who meets the eligibility requirements can apply, a single company can register multiple candidates.
In effect, the system—introduced to prevent contracting authorities, such as local governments, from arbitrarily selecting evaluation committee members—is creating new loopholes. An official in the event industry pointed out, “There is even competition to ‘secure evaluation committee members’ ahead of the bidding.”
There are even rumors in the industry that money and gifts are being exchanged in exchange for favorable scores. In fact, last August in Cheongju, during the selection process for a service provider for the Musimcheon Cherry Blossom Food Truck Festival, the representative of a participating company and three evaluation committee members were referred to prosecutors on charges of accepting bribes.

As transparency in the selection of evaluation committee members has eroded, the fairness of the scoring process has also become an issue. While most systems exclude the highest and lowest scores, when identical scores are given, only one of them is excluded. For example, if two out of seven evaluation committee members both give the highest score to a specific company, under the tie-breaking rule, only one score is excluded, and the other member’s highest score remains in the final score.
Another event industry official noted, “Following online communities that simply compile job postings for evaluators, companies specializing in the management of evaluators have also emerged.”
◇ Ministry of the Interior and Safety to Develop Measures After Gathering Industry Input
The financial and administrative burdens resulting from repeated re-bidding are being borne entirely by local governments and the industry. Critics point out that a vicious cycle is repeating itself: repeated re-bidding shortens the preparation period, which can affect the quality of the event, while also increasing administrative and operational costs. For the Yeosu City “Island Day” commemorative event, the selection of an operating agency—a process that should have taken no more than two months—took five months due to three rounds of bidding.
Several local government officials, who requested anonymity, expressed frustration, stating, “The administrative burden involved in conducting a single bidding process—from the announcement to the selection—is considerable.” They added, “No matter how fair and transparent we try to be, suspicions and controversies keep arising due to loopholes in the existing system and procedures.”
It has been pointed out that to address the revealed weaknesses in the existing public bidding system, the very method of selecting evaluation committee members must be overhauled. Kim Han-seok, Chairman of the Korea MICE Event Cooperative, argued, “We must shift from the current practice of publicly recruiting evaluation committee members on a case-by-case basis to a system of a permanently managed pool,” and added, “The obligation to disclose evaluation results (within three days after the evaluation concludes)—which currently applies only to tenders conducted by the Public Procurement Service—should be extended to local governments.”
There is also advice that a system should be established to verify the past history of evaluation committee members—including any allegations of conflicts of interest or information leaks—during the selection process. CEO Jo Jun-ho expressed hope that “by assigning a unique ID to each evaluation committee member, we can track who conducted which evaluation and where, thereby preventing misconduct such as repeatedly awarding favorable scores to specific companies before it occurs.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the government agency in charge of local government contracts, stated, “We are preparing an industry roundtable to identify issues that have arisen in the public bidding process for local events and to devise measures for institutional improvement.”