Inaugural Maggie Valley Ice Festival a huge hit

Eligiah Thornton, The Mountaineer, Waynesville, N.C.
·3 min read

Jan. 31—So many people flocked to the inaugural Maggie Valley Ice Festival on Saturday, Jan. 28, that traffic backed up along Soco Road — taking upwards of 30 minutes for festival goers to make their way into the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

The event brought folks from all over the Southeast in record numbers to witness world class ice sculptors, local food vendors, Ice slides, games and more.

"It was a bizarrely long wait in traffic, but it was worth it," said Caitie Belle Jackson of Sylva. "This is a unique winter event and fun time to spend with the family."

Jackson said she had been excited about the event for a few weeks.

Unlike most festivals that start in the morning, the ice festival ran from 3 to 8 p.m. — which led to a greater influx of people arriving within the same window, and thus the traffic back-ups.

The timing of the festival was designed to avoid the hottest parts of the day. But unseasonably warm temperatures hastened melting of the ice sculptures before dusk finally set in.

The event was designed to drive winter tourism for Maggie Valley, and it certainly checked that box. In addition to traffic lines, festival-goers experience long waits for food — also due to the large turnout.

"This is a first-time event so there are definitely things to work on, but we will work through those kinks for the next year," said Lynn Collins, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. "Overall, the event was a huge success."

The event was organized through the combined efforts of the town of Maggie Valley and Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce. The TDA provided $40,000 in grant money for the festival: $32,000 to hire Ice Mill Studio of Asheville to produce the event and $8,000 for marketing.

Ice Mill Studios brought around 40,000 pounds of ice — about "the weight of a hundred Polar Bears" — to be sculpted and used at the festival.

A plethora of unique ice carvings were stationed throughout the festival grounds. Bear, elk, selfie-stations, an ice slide kids could slide down, ice cornhole and more adorned the lawn and led the way to the main event — the live ice-carving demonstrations on stage.

Professional ice sculptors gave live demonstrations to the beat of DJ Sound Explosion, as onlookers watched in awe at the evolution of the once monstrous blocks of ice into woodland creatures and winged beauties.

"It has been an amazing turnout, I am thrilled to see so many people here" said Tracy Harrell, a family friend of Ice Mill Studio. Harrell dressed for the event as Elsa from the movie Frozen and was available for photo ops with those in attendance with any of the woodland creature sculptures.

Patrick O'Brien, the owner of the Ice Mill Studio, was also thrilled at the number of attendees and events of the evening and simply said, "Wait until next year."