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LAKE GENEVA, Wisconsin — After delays due to warm weather, the Lake Geneva Ice Castle is on track to open this weekend, beginning February 4th.
The team started building before Christmas, but nearly 70% of the build was lost due to warm weather from the end of December through January. However, this recent cold snap forced the team to work overtime to get ready to open the display this weekend.
About 10,000 icicles are placed by hand every day. Getting an Ice Castle up and running during the season can be a daunting task. Temperatures are in the single digits, especially for those who work outside.
“It was a struggle,” said Ice Castle event manager Wally Bullard.
(Spectrum News 1/Megan Marshall)
Bullard said the weather has been tough for the team this year.
It was warm for a really long time. We got very cold just before Christmas. We had some walls that were taller than they are now at that point, but then it melted and the humidity got up and it really struggled,” Bullard said.
How the ice melted brought its own set of challenges. Normally, the Ice Castles team would say the piece melts from the top first, but this time it started melting from the bottom.
“We had a unique problem. Usually it melts from top to bottom, but our build team figured out how to use the melted ice to rebuild the whole thing. says Bullard.
Bullard said the cold weather came at just the right time, with the season opener weekend just around the corner.
“They started to get cold like last Wednesday and were pushing hard all weekend,” Bullard said.
Ice Castles was originally scheduled to open on January 27th, but that didn’t happen, but this extra time was used to get creative and add elements to the display.
Bullard said, “We’re in a situation where we’ve had backlash and want to make the castle bigger and better.”
(Spectrum News 1/Megan Marshall)
Ice Castles uses performers like a lit-up fairy forest, LED swings, fire dancers, and even adds a sleigh ride. Needless to say, the team had to rebuild almost the entire structure over the past week and a half.
This project has been a labor of love, and thanks to the well-known cold weather in Wisconsin, we are finally nearing the finish line.
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