Snow trucked in for New Year’s Eve bash

The Daily Courier

Even with plenty of the white stuff lying around, organizers of Kelowna’s New York New Years Eve celebration still arranged to have some snow brought to Stuart Park.

Nothing fires up kids’ imagination like having a big mound of snow to play with, event organizer Renata Mills said Monday.

“We wanted to build up some places for children to play in, because kids take to snow piles like ants take to sugar, and we’d done enough shovelling ourselves,” Mills, executive director of Festivals Kelowna, said with a laugh.

An estimated 8,500 people took in the family-oriented celebration, timed to coincide with New Year’s Eve festivities in New York City so kids and parents could get to bed early. The head count was down slightly from last year, with the drop attributed by Mills to a temperature of -13 C compared to a more balmy -5 C last year.

“There were so many people last year you really couldn’t move on the skating rink,” Mills said. “It was nice to have a bit more elbow room this year.”

New Year’s Eve celebrations were cancelled in several Canadian cities on Sunday because of extreme cold. But that was never a consideration in Kelowna, Mills said, noting past celebrations have gone ahead in temperatures below -15 C.

Along with the usual lineup of singers and entertainers, fireworks and a warm-up station in the nearby Kelowna Community Theatre, this year’s event featured a few new wrinkles. One was a snow-painting area for kids, and the plan was for children to use spray nozzles to squirt food colouring.

“But the nozzles froze up,” Mills said. “So we used turkey basters instead.”