International Ice Sculpture Festival

Name: International Ice Sculpture Festival
Start: 2023-12-08
End: 2023-12-10
Location: Earth Hall

Friday Dec 8 - Sunday Dec 10 ul. Głogowska 14

Poznań International Ice Sculpture Festival & Competition; (c) Marek Zakrzewski

Poznań's International Ice Sculpture Festival is the city's premier holiday event, drawing an international audience and thousands of locals to see some of the world's most skilled artists working under pressure with chainsaws and chisels to create wondrous works of art before their very eyes. Typically a major attraction that can be experienced in tandem with the city's annual Christmas market on Stary Rynek, with Poznań's market square undergoing renovations, this year the event has been moved to a space suitable for so many onlookers - the Poznań International Trade Fair (Międzynarodowe Targi Poznańskie), specifically Earth Hall (Sala Ziemi), Pavilion 2. Despite the change of location indoors, don't miss this amazing (and free!) winter spectacle.

Ice Sculpture Festival action shot by Marek Zakrzewski.

This year's Ice Sculpture Festival will take place for the 16th time from December 8-10, 2023. 24 ice scultpture artists from around the world will compete in three contests over three days. The first day (Friday) will feature the Small Sculpture Competition, followed on Saturday by the most exciting competition – Speed Ice Carving - in which individual sculptures are given identical blocks of ice and a strict time limit to recreate the competition pattern; best resemblance to the original wins. The last day (Sunday) will see the Main Competition, in which teams of two are given several tonnes of ice and most of the day to create large-scale sculptures of their own imagination. Even if you miss the competition, make sure you don't miss seeing the results. If you're planning a holiday trip to Poznań, this is certainly the event to plan around.