‘It’s beautiful’: Ice castle returns to Mayville Winter Festival

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (WIVB) — A community in the Southern Tier is embracing the winter weather this weekend at the Mayville Winter Festival.

The village-wide festival offers live music, food and drinks, a number of outdoor winter activities and more for both community members and visitors to enjoy.

A big draw to the weekend-long event is its giant ice castle, which made a return for the first time in several years since the weather conditions have been just right for its construction.

“It’s beautiful. They really outdid it this year and did a great job and hopefully they do it next year,” said festival attendee Jason Abram.

The return of the festival, along with its famous ice castle, is all thanks to the help of crafty volunteers.

“They put a lot of thought, a lot of effort into some of the details and I think they’re to be well commended for what they’ve done,” said attendees Diane and Joe Andrasik.

One visitor traveled over an hour from Warren, Pennsylvania, to see it.

Behind-the-scenes look into building Mayville Winter Festival’s ice castle

“I wanted to see it last year,” Meredith Zimmerman said. “We didn’t make it out and it wasn’t going to happen originally, so when I heard it was happening and they were going to have the ice castle I was like, ‘We better go see it because it might not be here next year.’”

The festival was almost cancelled this year because of uncertain weather and the rising costs to run the event.

Despite the challenges, the community, local businesses and the organization Inspire Good of Western New York teamed up to make it come to fruition.

“It really means everything,” said Henry Navaro, the general manager of Chautauqua Suites. “It brings a lot of people that we haven’t seen in years. It’s a great thing.”

People embraced the cold and snowy weather by snowmobiling, sledding and ice fishing.

To warm up, festival goers stopped by the Chautauqua Suites to check out vendors and support local businesses.

“Mayville’s a great area. You’ve got ice fishing out on the lake, the snowmobile trails behind me, restaurants, businesses that really needed support,” Jason said. “We just like the family environment that Mayville invites.”

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Sarah Minkewicz is an Emmy-nominated reporter and Buffalo native who has been a part of the News 4 team since 2019. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahMinkewicz and click here to see more of her work.

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