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Carmel’s Festival of Ice goes on despite warm temps

Carmel ice festival to go on despite warm weather

CARMEL, Ind. (WISH)– The Festival of Ice at Center Green Art of Ice weekend features carving demonstrations by professional ice carvers, a fast-paced carve-off competition, a firehouse chili cook-off, a kids play area, skating to a live DJ, and more.

On opening night, the artists from all over the Midwest showcased their talents on Main Street for families to see. This year, because of warmer and rainy weather, Saturday’s activities are canceled, but the schedule of events, including the carving competition, will get back on track Sunday for the festival’s finale.

Michael and Matthew Stoddart are an ice-sculpting father and son who made the trip from Lexington, Kentucky, and they’ve been coming to the event since it started three years ago.

“It’s exciting,” Michael said. “It’s a nice venue that we come to each year. We go to different ones all over the country and this is one of the nicer ones.”

Michael has been making art out of ice for 25 years and he says Matthew got hooked at the age of 13. Now, they look forward to coming to the Festival of Ice and showing people in Indiana what they can do.

“This is the time we really get to have a good time and express our artistic style and have fun with the sculptures that we really don’t get to do during the normal season,” Matthew said.

As they build these sculptures out of 300-pound blocks of ice, they say it still feels good when people come to watch in awe of their work in progress.

“It’s very humbling to be able to showcase my skill to others and then seeing what we can do out of ice and seeing that wow factor,” Matthew said.

The Stoddarts are just two of many artists that will have their work on display at the Festival of Ice and there are many more activities that people can enjoy Sunday.

Click here to see an updated schedule of events for the festival.