Enjoy winter at the biggest ice festival

PARNU - Each season gives its miracles and attracts with the diversity in nature. With winter enclosing our bodies, it is time to look around and see how it is portraying our lives in its own unique landscape. The more we explore, the further we realize that winter uses many tools to communicate, and ice is one of them. At the same time, we have learnt to use it to offer a fantastic feedback to winter.

From Feb. 16 – 24 everyone is welcome to attach their memories of the season to the Ice Festival 2013, in Parnu, which kicks off its program to entertain in the style of winter.
Gathering together more than 20,000 visitors and forming a space for enjoyment, Parnu Ice Festival has become one of the central events in the coldest season in Estonia. When people take their skates and skis out of the closet, everyone is sure that the waters are covered in ice, with the grownd hidden by the snow. Created to make its audience excited, this year’s festival opens its doors and invites you to taste and feel a journey through a world which is completely made of snow and ice. This includes the Ice City, that displays sculptures, a restaurant, cinema and rink, where various performances are going to be presented.

This also promotes the Winter Park, which is built to encourage physical activity, such as ice-hockey, skiing, skating, snow tubing, sledging, ice-fishing and even paintball in the snow. Subsequently, the event is awaiting people with diverse interests from different age groups, as everyone will be able to find something to admire.
Additionally, the festival highlights two headlines, taking place on two Saturdays. On Feb. 16 visitors will envision the world through a spectacle conjured by ice and fire in the “Ice Symphony.” A week later, on Feb. 23, illuminating Estonia’s Independence Day, the Ice Festival will make music its foundation when the choirs of Parnu county and the popular Estonian soloists Maarja-Liis Ilus and Tonis Magi perform in an open-air concert at the Winter Park.

It can be said that the meaning of the Ice Festival expects that each visitor will add his or her own individual value, developing an atmosphere where daily troubles are left aside and only happiness and delight are beamed from the heart. Therefore, a keen contribution and participation in the festival’s activities will not only enrich the program in general, but also in every separate soul.

All together, the Ice Festival shapes a great sense of belonging and positions winter as the season where the main emphasis is not put on the cold weather and dark evenings, but on opportunities in how to use winter to relax, stay physically strong and spend an unforgettable time with family and friends.
Inevitably, even though the festival is all about the fun, no one should forget that winter is the trickiest season of the year. Thus, there is a need to take safety and health measures seriously in order to enjoy the event in full. This is where the visitors have to wear proper clothes to stay warm, look after themselves and others and advise everyone else to do the same. In this way the Ice Festival indeed will record the most beautiful snapshots of winter, captured in a man-made show.

If doubts still remain whether to attend the festival or not, there is one word to remember: pleasure. The festival unifies the elements of contemporary culture to give a task for each of the five senses that a human has, and engages them into the memory.

Alternatively, prior to the Ice Festival itself do not miss a chance to see how specialists and students from different disciplines and countries will use the Ice Architecture Workshop on Feb. 4 – 10 to make the Ice City and Winter Park rise from the ground and strive up into the Estonian air.

More information can be found on icefest.eu.