Steve Thurston (2021)
An employee walks through the beginnings of the Ice Castles attraction late last month.
The much-ballyhooed Ice Castles attraction is set to open Sunday at the Charles R. Wood Park in Lake George Village, a press release from the company announced today.
“The interactive experience will feature ice-carved tunnels, fountains, slides, frozen thrones, and cascading towers of ice embedded with color-changing LED lights.
“Artisans have spent the last eight weeks growing, harvesting, and hand-placing icicles to create the life-size fairytale playground in Upstate New York,” the release says.
This is the first year of an ice castle in Lake George, one of only five locations nationally. It is the only Ice Castle in the state, and the governor is expected to visit, said Gina Mintzer, the president of the Lake George Chamber of Commerce and CVB.
Leaders in the community expect tens of thousands of visitors during the next few months.
Business owners and their representatives including those from the Fort William Henry to the Sagamore Hotel and smaller shops in between have mentioned the attraction as a major draw for the region.
Last week, Kathryn Flacke-Muncil, the CEO of the Fort William Henry, said the expansion plans for her resort are due in part to the expected traffic that Ice Castles will bring.
[Read more about the expansion here.]
"I think that's going to be a game-changer," said Lori Rehm, the director of sales for the Sagamore Resort. "I think that'll be pretty huge."
Kelli O’Neil-Teer, owner of Serendipity in Bolton Landing, said, earlier this month, the county’s focus on becoming a four-season destination seems to be helping, but she was still wondering about sales in January and if Ice Castles would help.
Will people venture 10 miles further north to shop and dine in Bolton? She said she thought it might.
“If we get people to realize we are there,” O’Neil-Teer said, referring to the shops in Bolton, “they’ll come.”
The county thus far has only a one-year contract with the company that builds and runs the attraction, Mintzer said today. Though she fully expects the company to return next year to the village's Wood park. She said designers are already planning what next year's castle will look like.
In an email Don Lehman, the county's director of communications, said Ice Castles received $50,000 in county occupancy taxes to promote the attraction.
Mintzer said today that Ice Castles will be another attraction to be added to the village’s winter activities: the month-long Winter Carnival, which runs on the weekends in February and is celebrating its 60th year this year; and Winterfest, which is going on now through March. It offers an array of activities to do at various sites throughout the region.
“This is the next layer,” Mintzer said. She said the draw will be big as it runs into the evenings all week long and could still be open in March. She said, also, that the county expects to draw people who are in the area for activities such as skiing to realize there is an evening activity after the skiing is done.
“It expands the offerings for a variety of different demographics,” Mintzer said.
The Utah-based company has four other locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Utah. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, the release says. A “locals” day will be held Feb. 2, Mintzer said, with special ticket pricing for people who live in the county.
Ticket prices will range from $16 for children on weekdays to $28 adult weekend admission.
Updated 9:03 p.m., Jan. 18: A couple errors in the story, especially around the contracting of the attraction were pointed out to us, and we fixed them. We apologize for the error.