Plans for next month’s WinterFest were presented to the Culver Town Council last week. Organizer Tony Sellers said the event will be held February 8 through 10, and many of last year’s attractions will be returning. “Last year, we added on the ice fights and the beer garden, which went really well,” he said. “The ice fights – it was a huge success. We were seeing a lot of seasonal residents back in town that weekend, was what we really noticed, which was good.”
One change that WinterFest organizers plan to request from the town is to allow the beer garden to be open later. “With the ice fights, what we’ve seen is with the lighting and stuff, it just looks really awesome at nighttime,” Sellers said. “So we’re trying to see if we can maybe push that back an hour, maybe 4:00 to 9:00, instead of 3:00 to 8:00, so that was one request we had.”
Sellers also asked town officials to consider increasing the park department’s contribution back up to $2,500, after it’s been at $500 in recent years. “I can’t sell booths. I can’t sell space. So that’s one of our struggles,” he explained. “All the money that is generated is through donations. And last year, we did about almost $10,500 in ice sculptures, and our goal this year is to try to get that up around $15,000, which will really make the sculptures in the park nice, more interactive stuff, photo ops, things like that. So that’s kind of our goal.”
WinterFest organizers will turn in a special event request form, for the council’s consideration at a future meeting. Meanwhile, their request for additional town funding will go to Park Superintendent Amber Cowell for a recommendation.
