We’ve had a flurry of fun at all our winter festivals, a blizzard of international interest in our winter city, and a (snow) ball of a time dreaming up new ways to make our city awesome when the temperature dips.
So, to celebrate this past season, here are the ways Edmonton (and Edmontonians) rocked at winter!
Silver Skate – Valentine’s Day
- Dozens of winter festivals: It was a busy winter season for our city’s festival producers. With a festival scheduled for nearly every weekend at the height of winter, Edmontonians had tons of opportunities to grab one of our Winter Excitement Guides (our go-to source of information about all the cool things happening during the winter season), get outside and celebrate. From biggies like the Silver Skate Festival’s 25th year, Ice on Whyte and the Deep Freeze Festival, to more intimate neighborhood parties like 124th Street’s All is Bright and McCauley’s Frostival, there was no shortage of community celebrations to warm up the winter season. To make sure these kinds of festivals continue to thrive in our city, we’re looking at how we can support them further with a winter festival coordinating body – a new way for festival producers to work together and support each other all season long.
- Winter Cities Shake Up Conference: It was a goal of ours since the beginning of the WinterCity journey to host the world in Edmonton, and provide a platform for city champions and planners to discuss how to create fabulous winter cities. So this year’s conference was a dream come true for us, as we welcomed more than 400 registrants from 52 cities and 11 countries to Edmonton for winter learning, sharing and inspiration. The three-day conference featured amazing key note speeches, plenary discussions, winter fieldtrips and an outdoor winter market. It was a chance to build relationships with other winter champions, and we’re hoping this conference was the first of many in years to come.
Freezeway – Rendering Matt Gibbs
- The Freezeway: At the Winter Cities Shake Up Conference, we heard about this clever active transportation idea from landscape architect Matthew Gibbs. The idea hit the big time, attracting media attention from all across the globe, including the BBC, CNN and NPR. Matt is currently exploring a pilot project with the Edmonton Ski Club for next year, so here’s hoping this literally cool idea will become a reality in the coming years!
- WinterCity Design Guidelines: The way we build our cities has a huge impact on our climate – we can actually “change” the weather depending on the way we design our buildings. By creating micro-climates, we can make our spaces feel warmer and sunnier by harnessing south-facing sun and sheltered environments. So we’re pleased to have released a draft of the WinterCity Design Guidelines, which we hope will impact future building in our city. Let’s warm up our buildings, inside and out!
- Creative Lighting Master Plan: Light dramatically impacts how we feel about our public spaces – making them safer, friendlier and more attractive. And with long winter nights, we’ve got a great canvas to play with, so we’ve started developing a creative lighting master plan for our city. This work has just begun, so you can look forward to the lights of our winter city shining even brighter in the next few winters!
Four-Season Patio Culture
- Four Season Patio Culture: We’re taking lessons from our northern European cousins by building a four season patio culture in Edmonton. By removing some of the logistical barriers for restaurants to open their patios during shoulder seasons and warmer winter days, we’re working towards more vibrant street life and lengthening the joy of patio season to all year long. It’s a culture shift, but as the success of our second annual Farewell to Winter Patio Party shows, it’s one that’s welcomed by Edmontonians, young and young-at-heart alike! All you need is a patio heater, a cozy blanket, and a mug of hot chocolate, and you’re good to go!
- Red Bull Crashed Ice: Edmontonians know how to have a good time, and a great time was had by Red Bull Crashed Ice revelers, just in time to say goodbye to winter. More than 70,000 people flooded the viewing areas around the Shaw Conference Centre to take in the excitement of this extreme sport, and thousands more took in the mad fun at Churchill Square and patios across the city. We loved hosting this huge sporting event, and here’s hoping for more of this kind of winter fun in the future!
It really was one of our best winters yet. We love how much community support there has been for winter this year – from great corporate partners like EPCOR’s Winter Chalet, to grassroots groups like #YegSnowFight, we couldn’t be more proud to live in a city with so much winter passion.
And now that spring is here, it’s time for us to reflect on the past year and continue to build on the terrific uptick in energy we’ve seen from winter champions. Just because the weather warms up, it doesn’t mean our work at theWinterCity office ends, so we’re continually looking for new ways to make sure our winters keep getting better and better, warmer in spirit and fun, safe and inspiring for everyone.
After all, you can’t change the weather, but you can change how you feel about it. We’re here to show you how!