Why FestivICE, the ice sculpture festival in York, will not be held this year
FestivICE, the winter festival that featured ice carvings in York, will not be held this year.
The event is expensive to produce, and the York Revolution was unable to renew sufficient sponsorship to continue to hold it, said Eric Menzer, president of the York Revolution.
The carvers work for weeks to produce the works of art, he said.
The festival had been held for eight years in mid-January, Menzer said. It started in the baseball stadium the first year and grew from there. The frozen ice sculptures could be seen in Continental Square in York and in the small towns along the Heritage Rail Trail County Park.
What will replace FestivICE?
A few months ago, the York County Economic Alliance and Downtown Inc announced that towns along the rail trail will receive $100,000 for public art and revitalization. It's called the Creative Communities Initiative.
A working group will evaluate projects. One of the ideas is to fund a more cost-effective winter event to replace FestivICE, Katie Mahoney, chief marketing and business development officer for the York County Economic Alliance & Downtown Inc, said at the time.
The support of Creative Communities would be for towns to possibly create their own events, Mahoney said Thursday in an email. Those discussions are happening now so nothing is planned for this winter.
York Revolution does not have any current plans to replace the event with something else, Menzer said. It's possible that other organizations might be working on a special event.
"Obviously, we are always up for cooperating with folks in the York community, whether that's downtown or elsewhere, on providing great, fun things for folks in York to do," he said. "So we would be open, certainly if someone had some ideas of what should happen in York in the winter to keep people entertained."
Ice festivals to be held in other communities
For those who wish to attend an ice festival, other communities in the region will be hosting them this winter.
Chambersburg's IceFest will be held Thursday, Jan. 25 through Sunday, Jan. 28, and it will feature more than 100 ice sculptures.
The Lititz Fire & Ice Festival will be held Friday, Feb. 16 through Sunday, Feb. 25, according to the website.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Why FestivICE, the ice sculpture festival in York, will not be held this year
