The city of Bowling Green held its 8th annual Winterfest this past weekend, which took place throughout the city, mostly at City Park.
The event had both Bowling Green residents and residents from neighboring towns, as the event was promoted all over Northwest Ohio, Wendy Chambers, executive director of the Bowling Green Convention and Visitors Bureau said.
“We had over 50 people for the Frostbite Run … and the fact that the UCT Hockey Tournament brought in 23 teams, so we had lots of visitors this year,” Chambers said.
The first planning for Winterfest happens about six months in advance.
The last few years, Winterfest has been held on the second weekend in February, which usually ends up being Valentine’s Day weekend.
“We started the Winterfest eight years ago to celebrate Scott Hamilton’s anniversary of his 25th year of being a gold medalist. That’s how it started,” Chambers said.
Scott Hamilton, raised in Bowling Green, won gold for figure skating in the 1984 Olympics.
Ice sculptures have been put throughout the city, including one with the logo from Meijer and a University logo.
An ice carving demonstration took place at the BG Ice Arena Saturday morning.
The event started Feb. 12, with one of the main events being the hockey game between Bowling Green and Miami, which BG lost 4-1.
On Saturday, a post to the Visit BG Ohio Facebook page said that the horse drawn carriage rides that were scheduled for Saturday afternoon had been canceled due to extreme cold.
But the cold weather didn’t stop some from enjoying the festivities that Winterfest offered. For the second year in a row, Biggby Coffee sponsored the Frostbite Fun Run.
Senior Tayler Hinton, one of the workers at Biggby Coffee, said her coworkers who worked the morning shift were kept busy with customers.
“The shift before me said it was really busy and they were really busy … I remember last year we sponsored (the run) and they were really excited to have Biggby sponsor it again,” Hinton said.
For the last month, displays of art from Bowling Green High School students have been showcased in the Four Corners building. Some of the artwork included photographs, ceramics and silhouette paintings. There were also hotan drawings, which shows the harmony between dark and light in pictures.
The gallery has been displayed from Jan. 11 through Feb. 14.
Outside of the Four Corners building, a cutout picture stand was available so visitors would be able to take their pictures of their faces on snowmen.
At Stones Throw Tavern and Grill Saturday night, they had live music playing from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m., which is a weekly occurrence. The band that played on Feb. 13 was Looking For Lucinda, who played covers of Americana and popular folk songs, including Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”
“This is my first time here,” freshman Moriah Gentry said. “It’s pretty cool. I like the folksy, Americana feel.”
Chambers said the only event that got canceled was the horse drawn carriages Saturday afternoon because of the cold. She said she saw people playing hockey and skating in the park, which were some of the activities from Saturday and Sunday.
“This year, it impacted us with lots of visitors. It is a community event, but you hope you entice people to come and visit, shop, eat and we managed to do that this year with adding the hockey tournament. We’ve done that in the past with just the lure of the ice sculptures,” Chambers said.
