[Report] Reading the 'Daejeon 0 O'clock Festival' at the Sapporo Snow Festival

74-Year History of Japan's Sapporo 'Snow Festival'
Renowned as One of the World's Top 3 Festivals with 2.7 Million Annual Visitors
Interactive Festival Leveraging Snowy Geographic Features
Exploring Linkage and Development with 'Daejeon Midnight Festival'

On the 4th, people walk shoulder to shoulder along the snow-covered streets in downtown Sapporo, Japan. Their expressions are bright and cheerful without any distortion as they awkwardly walk along the snowy paths. While cautiously avoiding slipping on the icy roads, each person is busy capturing the surrounding scenery with their mobile phones or expensive video equipment. This is a common sight easily found in Sapporo, where the entire city center has turned into a pure white snowy world, and at the Sapporo Snow Festival.

A large snow sculpture encountered at the Sapporo Snow Festival site. This year's Snow Festival will be held from the 2nd to the 11th at Odori Park in Sapporo City. Photo by Jeong Il-woong jiw3061@

On this day, the opening ceremony of the 'Snow Festival' was held in Sapporo, Japan. The Snow Festival began in 1950 and has continued for 74 years this year. The Sapporo Snow Festival is also counted among the world's top three festivals. Sapporo attracts attention because it receives more snow than other regions, allowing visitors to enjoy the beauty of snowy landscapes right in the city center. As evidence of this, it is estimated that more than 2.7 million tourists visit the festival annually on average.

Typically, snow falls in Sapporo from November until April of the following year. Although the amount of snowfall varies each year, locals explain that it is common for the snow depth to exceed the waist height of an adult during the snow season. There is even a joke that most of Sapporo city's annual budget is spent on snow removal.

Snow sculpture artwork encountered at Odori Park during the Sapporo Snow Festival. Photo by Jeong Il-woong jiw3061@

The 'snow sculptures' that can be viewed at the Snow Festival are a major reason why people from around the world visit Sapporo. Taking advantage of the region's characteristic heavy snowfall, Sapporo city has created a special place to enjoy the festival through snow sculptures. It is said that the local snow culture, which residents used to enjoy on a small scale, became widely known through the Sapporo Winter Olympics (1972) and eventually developed into the current Snow Festival.

In other words, the Snow Festival was originally a participatory festival where local residents directly took part and enjoyed it. Based on this, even now, in Odori Park where the Snow Festival is held, two out of the 11 sections (total length 1.5 km) are entrusted to citizen sculptors to freely create snow sculptures. The remaining areas are filled with exhibition and experience spaces for snow sculptures funded by corporate investments, as well as spaces for participants in the international snow sculpture competition.

The Sapporo Snow Festival is a participatory festival that originally began with voluntary participation from citizens. Reflecting this, various elements where visitors can directly experience activities are set up throughout the festival site alongside the exhibition of snow sculptures. Citizens are enjoying play experiences by using the snow sculptures as slides. Photo by Jeong Il-woong jiw3061@

Among these, the festival space created through corporate investment attracts attention by displaying large snow sculpture works and allowing visitors to experience activities such as sliding on snow slides. Additionally, food booths for corporate promotion are set up throughout the festival site, where visitors can enjoy warm coffee and ramen. This allows visitors not only to enjoy snow sculptures made of snow but also to fully enjoy the festival with various experiences and food.

Sculpture installed at the entrance of the International Snow Sculpture Competition area. The Sapporo Snow Festival is held by dividing Odori Park into 11 sections. The snow sculpture competition takes place in some sections from the 2nd to the 7th. Photo by Jeong Il-woong jiw3061@

The snow sculpture competition is the highlight of the Snow Festival. While it is fun to view already completed snow sculptures, the real charm of the competition is that visitors can fully observe the process of creating the snow sculptures. This year’s snow sculpture competition started on the 3rd, one day before the opening ceremony, and will conclude with an awards ceremony on the 7th. The sculptures created during the competition will be dismantled the next day, the 8th, using heavy machinery. According to officials at the site, many people gather even during the snow sculpture dismantling process.

In Daejeon, snow sculptors from Hannam University, Mokwon University, and Chungnam National University form one team per university each year and participate in the competition in rotation. This year, the team of snow sculptors from Hannam University participated as the Korean representative. This team has a history of winning the competition in 2014. Kim Gi-yeop (47), the eldest member of the Hannam University team, said, "While achieving good results is important, focusing on enjoying the atmosphere of the competition and the process of creating the work comes first. During the remaining competition period, all team members will focus on creating good works while smiling and enjoying themselves."

Artists Jeon Yong-hwa, Kim Ki-yeop, and Lee Jeong-hwa (from left) who participated in the International Snow Sculpture Competition are taking a commemorative photo with the snow sculpture in the background. These three are graduates of the Department of Art Education at Hannam University and formed the Korean national team to participate in the competition. Photo by Jeong Il-woong jiw3061@

Sapporo is a sister city of Daejeon, and they have maintained exchanges since 2010. Especially at this year’s Snow Festival, Lee Jang-woo, mayor of Daejeon, and an economic delegation visited the site in person to encourage the teams participating in the snow sculpture competition and to explore ways to develop the ‘Daejeon 0시 Festival’ at the Snow Festival site.

The mayor said, “Sapporo continues the tradition of the Snow Festival by reflecting its geographical characteristic of heavy snowfall and the local culture that has been passed down from the past. As a sister city of Sapporo, Daejeon will strive to expand exchanges in culture, economy, and other fields with the counterpart city to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship for the development of both cities.”

The mayor added, “Just as Sapporo attracted global attention with its winter Snow Festival, we will make the ‘Daejeon 0시 Festival’ a world-class festival representing Korea in the summer season beyond Daejeon. We are considering ways to find and apply the factors that have allowed the Sapporo Snow Festival to be sustained and activated over a long period to the ‘Daejeon 0시 Festival.’”

Lee Kwang-young, secretary at the Korean Consulate General in Sapporo, said, “Recently, Daejeon’s active strengthening of friendly cooperation with Sapporo has been encouraging locally. Although exchanges have continued since the sister city agreement, since last year, the mayors of both cities and economic delegations have been visiting each other actively, broadening the scope of exchanges.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.