Plans to save Ice Fest include county coming together

Aarik Long, The Mountaineer, Waynesville, N.C.
·4 min read

Aug. 10—Just a couple of months ago, the Ice Festival could have been dead in the water. However, a new county-wide proposal may have saved the event.

The event would now be part of Ice Festival Weekend, with events taking place in towns around Haywood County between Friday, Jan. 26 and Sunday, Jan. 28.

"I was impressed with the feedback and enthusiasm we got from Canton, Waynesville, Lake Junaluska and Cataloochee Ski Resort," Alderman Jim Owens said. "They're all on the committee, and it's really moving forward."

The normal Ice Festival event in Maggie Valley would be the main event of the weekend, taking place on Saturday, Jan. 27 from 4-9 p.m.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority is going to be the title sponsor and has worked to rally help from other organizations, including the Cataloochee Ski Area, Downtown Waynesville Commission, Haywood County Chamber of Commerce, Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce, Haywood County Parks and Recreation, Canton Parks and Recreation, Lake Junaluska and Downtown Canton businesses.

"They're seeing the value of us all working together," TDA Executive Director Corrina Ruffieux said.

However, she also said no one on the committee wanted to step up and actually be in charge of the weekend's events.

The hope of the weekend is that enough funding can be brought in to fund a promoter to handle the event in 2025.

"Everybody concurs that we should do everything we can to keep the momentum from the amazing success of last year to doing something county wide in 2024 to save up enough money to outsource to a professional company in 2025," Ruffieux said. "We have to do something in 2025 to have that seed money to get there."

The TDA will put a website together detailing events throughout the county for visitors to attend and have already purchased the domain for that webpage. They will also help advertise the weekend, develop graphics and social media packages, create a virtual trail map on the Wander App for the weekend and collect sponsorships for the event.

The sponsorships are particularly important as they look to earmark that money for the 2025 Ice Festival Weekend and bringing in a promoter to handle the event. Visit NC Smokies will be the title sponsor for the weekend, with more than $45,000 in cash and in-kind support.

"The goal with the sponsorship packages is to gather sponsorships in support of the whole weekend and put all of that money in a restricted fund to be our seed money so we have money to actually hire somebody in 2025," Ruffieux said.

Cataloochee will also help with advertising and have offered to provide experienced volunteers to help with parking in Maggie Valley. They also offered to bring a snow machine down to the Festival Grounds for the Ice Festival. Cataloochee also said they'd consider developing a special menu item to highlight the weekend's events.

The Downtown Waynesville Commission proposed a curated ice sculpture trail of their own as a precursor to the big event in Maggie Valley. They will also look to coordinate with local restaurants for an Ice Festival Weekend themed restaurant week or themed menu items.

There was also discussion about reaching out to Haywood Waterways to move the Polar Plunge to the same weekend, keeping with the icy themes.

Numerous other ideas have been floated around by the groups including nighttime torch skiing up at Cataloochee, a live ice sculpting demonstration, a frozen t-shirt contest and a 5k.

Budget wise, the main event in Maggie will cost roughly $55,600 to put on. That includes $48,750 for the ice, as well as the costs of the DJ, Maggie Valley police and town employees working the event, supplies and insurance.

The town is set to receive $37,238 from the TDA to help fund the event, as well as a projected $750 from food vendors and $1,200 from craft vendors. The rest will come from ticket sales.

The current projection is 4,000 tickets sold, which will bring in $20,000 and put Maggie Valley at a profit of just over $3,500. However, that 4,000 tickets sold is just 40% of last year's attendance, meaning the sky is the limit on how much they could bring in.