Sapporo Snow Festival to have tourists at venues next year

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Attendees of the 2019 Sapporo Snow Festival crowd around a snow sculpture in Odori Park.

SAPPORO — The Sapporo Snow Festival, Hokkaido’s major winter event, will be held in-person in February next year for the first time since 2020, festival organizers announced.

The festival executive committee said Thursday that the festival will be held with tourists at venues, unlike in 2021 and 2022, which was forced to take place online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The festival is scheduled to take place from Feb. 4 to Feb. 11 in central Sapporo, where five large snow sculptures over 10 meters high will be displayed. But venues of the event will be limited to Odori Park and Susukino Site, according to the committee.

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Workers remove scaffolding from a snow sculpture in the middle of construction after the snow festival was canceled this February in Chuo Ward, Sapporo.