The Sapporo Snow Festival (Sapporo Yuki Matsuri) is held during one week every February in Hokkaido. In 2009, the Snow Festival will be held from February 5 through February 11, 2009.
The Festival was started in 1950, when high school students built a few snow statues in the main park Odori Park. It has since developed into a large, commercialized event. It features spectacular snow and ice sculptures and attracts more than two million visitors from Japan and across the world.
The Festival was started in 1950, when high school students built a few snow statues in the main park Odori Park. It has since developed into a large, commercialized event. It features spectacular snow and ice sculptures and attracts more than two million visitors from Japan and across the world.
The Festival is staged on three different sites across Sapporo City: the Odori Site, Susukino Site and Tsudomu Site.
The main site is the Odori Site. This is centrally located and stretches 1.5 kilometer long. The festival's famous large snow sculptures are built there and some of these sculptures are more than 15 meters tall and 25 meters wide. They are also lit up daily until late at night.
In addition to these dozen large snow sculptures, the Odori Site also hosts more than one hundred smaller snow and ice statues and hosts several concerts and events.
The Susukino Site, located in and named after Sapporo's largest entertainment district. This is where about one hundred ice sculptures are exhibited. Susukino is located only one subway stop south of Odori Park.
The Tsudomu site appears to have replaced the Sato Land site. There were obvious parking issues at Sato Land and Tsudomu can be accessed in a 5-10 minute walk from Sakaemachi Station.
