Muju County held the first Muju Firefly Festival from August 7 to 10, 1997, under the theme "Muju, Land of Nature." Built around an environment clean enough to sustain fireflies, the festival has continued every summer since.
Fireflies were never originally lighting up for an audience. They simply lived out their lives in a clean valley, and their glow was incidental to that life. But Muju invited that natural light under the name of a festival, giving city dwellers a chance to rediscover a glow in the dark that many had long forgotten.