Page 5 - ICE2025

Page 5

When it all began…

Japanese ice and snow sculpture show inspired first festival

It has taken more than 40 years for idea of an annual winter celebration in said during that interview. He said he
the Plymouth Ice Festival to achieve and Kellogg Park after watching a feature wanted to create an event to bring com-
surpass the success the original organiz- story on 60 Minutes about a snow and ice merce to downtown merchants and
ers anticipated when the “Ice festival in Sapporo, Japan. restaurants during the slow retail period
Spectacular” was first suggested to city Lorenz told his fellow business own- after the holidays.
officials. ers that the segment showed thousands His efforts have obviously proven suc-
The history of the event, depending of people from throughout Japan flock cessful in the past four decades as the
on who is telling the story, includes the into Sapporo to view the giant images of event is now rated as one of the top win-
names of many public officials and buildings, cartoon characters and assort- ter events in the state by some tourist
familiar names associated with the ed subject carved from ice and snow. In bureaus. The crowds have recently
development and growth of the commu- an interview several years ago, Lorenz reached an estimated 100,000 people
nity, but all agree that it did begin about said he was confident the event would coming to view the artistry of the carvers
43 years ago. It was in 1982, according to bring business to downtown Plymouth. and enjoy the family activities during the
most versions of the tale, when local “If they could do this Sapporo, I knew
businessman Scott Lorenz proposed the we could do this in Plymouth,” Lorenz See History, page 6

Huge snow sculptures like these were the inspiration for the first “Ice Spectacular” in Plymouth.