Loudonville gears up for Winterfest 2023
LOUDONVILLE − Created to promote tourism in the dead of winter, Winterfest will bring hundreds of people to southern Ashland County on Friday through Sunday.
Primary attractions include ice sculptures sponsored by local businesses and organizations, and ice sculpting demonstrations provided by Elegant Ice Creations, the firm which has provided the ice sculptures and demonstrations for Winterfest just about every year since the event started in the mid-2000s.
As of late December, 27 businesses had ordered sculptures, according to Valarie Spreng, executive director of the event sponsor, the Loudonville Chamber of Commerce.
Promoters are lobbying for cooperative winter weather for the event, which, over the years, has been staged in temperatures as low as 13 below zero to as warm as the mid-50s, neither of which was conducive to a successful event. Ideal weather is temperatures in the high 20s with no snow. This is Ohio in winter, however, and you get what Mother Nature gives you.
Winterfest 2023 includes ice sculptures, train expo
If weather is conducive, sculptures will be set up in the downtown Loudonville area in the late afternoon on Friday, so visitors can stroll among them that evening. If it is warmer, setup will be delayed until Saturday morning so the sculptures will last through the day.
Running concurrently with the Winterfest is the Model Train Expo, an event held during Winterfest weekend since 2014 in the Loudonville Fair Building on
North Water Street downtown.
The Train Expo will run from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Model train enthusiasts from all over the area will set up rail displays for visitors.
Mohican State Park will conduct activities all through the weekend as well, including a Reptile Ramblings program at the Mohican State Park Lodge at noon; reptile feeding at the Nature Center in the Class A Campground on state Route 3 at 3 p.m.; and the Mohican experts hiking series starting at 9 a.m. Saturday at the State Park trail in the Class A campground.
See ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ during Loudonville’s Winterfest
The Ohio Theatre in Loudonville will show the recently released hit movie “Avatar: The Way of Water” at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
The Cleo Redd Fisher Museum will conduct museum tours from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday; American Legion Post 257 will conduct a poker walk from 1 to 4 p.m. that day; and a “Glance at the Grist Mill” will be offered at 1 p.m. at the Wolf Creek/pine Run Grist Mill.
Ice carving demonstrations will be conducted in Central Park at 9 and 11 a.m., noon and 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m.
Final details had not been confirmed as of Dec. 28, but there could be a display of vintage and newer snowmobiles set up in Central Park from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Restaurants in the downtown area will be open for visitors, and the United Methodist Church of Loudonville will serve hot soup for lunch and a warm-up Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The church is on the north side of Central Park, near the demonstration site.