Ice Palace report
Jan. 28th, 2004 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkSo, Richard and I ventured into St. Paul last night to see the ice palace. Cold nights are good choices if you don't like waiting in line. Unfortunately, the winter weather has been so generally wimpy for the last 5 years that I sort of forgot how to dress for below-zero weather and got chilled. Fortunately, they had some warming houses available, so it wasn't all that bad.
The best thing about the Winter Carnival this year is that all the sights you want to see are centralized in downtown St. Paul, so you don't have to drive all over creation and go through the parking ordeal 3 times. The ice sculptures AND the snow sculptures are right outside Landmark Center and the area is all very jolly with holiday lights everywhere. I didn't take my camera because it doesn't deal well with low lighting, only to find that the snow sculptures were lit up like daylight and would have made fine pictures. There were some very clever snow sculptures. We could've done with a few less giant hockey players, but must admit that our favorite sculpture was two massive hockey players standing nose to nose, with discarded gloves and broken hockey sticks scattered around them, ferocious snarls on their faces. One of them has the other by the shirt, and mayhem is obviously imminent. It's not just an amusing subject, it's a really good sculpture from every angle. I enjoyed the ice sculptures somewhat less, probably because I was getting cold, and because there is a sameness about them from year to year: a few big ones featuring dragons, fish or large birds, at least one or two that are like giant medallions - impressive from the front but disappearing completely when you look at them from the side, and a bunch of amateurish single-block sculptures.
The ice palace was much better than I had been led to believe from the outside, but disappointing on the inside. It's a two-block walk from Landmark Center, and you have a great view of the fabulous light show the whole way. Like the 1992 palace, the colors change from breathtaking turquoise to brilliant magenta to emerald green to glowing gold. But wait, there's more! Glowing spheres bounce around inside the towers, going faster and faster until they are exploding like popcorn in time to the relentlessly silly musical accompaniment. Very nice.
However, once you pay your admission and go inside, there's not a lot to see. They lied - you can't go inside the ice palace. It's just a big courtyard with an elaborate ice wall around it and a large castle-like structure at one end. The castle does have an interior, which is where the lighting equipment is running, but you cant go in there. The courtyard has a few nice ice sculptures and a big torch, which is pretty. However, the effect is reduced to cheesiness by the distracting presence of advertisements everywhere, including on giant video monitors up on the sides of the castle. Blecch. The main advantage to going inside is that you can participate in the coining of the castle, an activity spontaneously created by the visiting public. There's also a stage in there, which presumably provides an inducement to buy a ticket when there is a show running. $5 isn't all that much of an admission charge, and it's a good cause, but I wouldn't recommend waiting in line for longer than 5 minutes to get in.
The best thing about the Winter Carnival this year is that all the sights you want to see are centralized in downtown St. Paul, so you don't have to drive all over creation and go through the parking ordeal 3 times. The ice sculptures AND the snow sculptures are right outside Landmark Center and the area is all very jolly with holiday lights everywhere. I didn't take my camera because it doesn't deal well with low lighting, only to find that the snow sculptures were lit up like daylight and would have made fine pictures. There were some very clever snow sculptures. We could've done with a few less giant hockey players, but must admit that our favorite sculpture was two massive hockey players standing nose to nose, with discarded gloves and broken hockey sticks scattered around them, ferocious snarls on their faces. One of them has the other by the shirt, and mayhem is obviously imminent. It's not just an amusing subject, it's a really good sculpture from every angle. I enjoyed the ice sculptures somewhat less, probably because I was getting cold, and because there is a sameness about them from year to year: a few big ones featuring dragons, fish or large birds, at least one or two that are like giant medallions - impressive from the front but disappearing completely when you look at them from the side, and a bunch of amateurish single-block sculptures.
The ice palace was much better than I had been led to believe from the outside, but disappointing on the inside. It's a two-block walk from Landmark Center, and you have a great view of the fabulous light show the whole way. Like the 1992 palace, the colors change from breathtaking turquoise to brilliant magenta to emerald green to glowing gold. But wait, there's more! Glowing spheres bounce around inside the towers, going faster and faster until they are exploding like popcorn in time to the relentlessly silly musical accompaniment. Very nice.
However, once you pay your admission and go inside, there's not a lot to see. They lied - you can't go inside the ice palace. It's just a big courtyard with an elaborate ice wall around it and a large castle-like structure at one end. The castle does have an interior, which is where the lighting equipment is running, but you cant go in there. The courtyard has a few nice ice sculptures and a big torch, which is pretty. However, the effect is reduced to cheesiness by the distracting presence of advertisements everywhere, including on giant video monitors up on the sides of the castle. Blecch. The main advantage to going inside is that you can participate in the coining of the castle, an activity spontaneously created by the visiting public. There's also a stage in there, which presumably provides an inducement to buy a ticket when there is a show running. $5 isn't all that much of an admission charge, and it's a good cause, but I wouldn't recommend waiting in line for longer than 5 minutes to get in.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-28 09:06 pm (UTC)I loved the construction; the time and the effort. I loved the design. Lights were cool.
But the ads, the TV screens, the sound level? Boo, hiss.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-28 10:01 pm (UTC)K.
Coining
Date: 2004-01-29 05:01 pm (UTC)The bubbly volunteer who let us into the warming house (aka The Excel Center) mentioned it, and seemed unsure whether it was considered a "problem" (her term) or a feature (my term) by the folks in charge of the event. I definitely go with feature.