Down on the Gulf Coast, it’s still very much in the heat of summer, with little relief in site. Add to that the ever-possible threat of a hurricane quickly blowing up in the Gulf, and summers down here can sometimes be a nervous waiting game. Maybe add a touch of heat stroke, and the great idea hits: “How cool would it be to have a large scale indoor ice event in the summer, right when we REALLY need it!” I start musing about what it would take, and start thinking about ideas for sculptures, and then BAM!, I remember what happened to IceSpace in London and “Cold Wave Over Nice” in France.

    I ALMOST went to both of these events, one to work at and the other to see. In the summer of 2001, Inaxi (a company in the Netherlands that puts on sand and ice/snow events) put together a large tented ice and snow event in the French Riviera city of Nice, France. (pronounced like “niece,” not nice) I’d been invited to work on sculptures at the event and I really wanted to go, but I couldn’t make it work. So all I got to do was look at pictures of the pretty impressive sculptures that resulted. But the event was never repeated, unlike almost all the winter ice and snow events that Inaxi runs (like Bruges, Belgium and Eindhoven, NL) The rumor that I got was that it didn’t make financial sense to do it again, which would mean that they didn’t sell enough tickets. (I’m not privy to much in the way of hard facts on this though, so if you know different, then you know more than me.)

    As for IceSpace, it was a huge ice lounge, etc. in a freezer tent that was set up near the Tower Bridge in London in the summer of 2006. I happened to be in London for other reasons, but I knew about IceSpace and made sure to find out all the details so I could make a quick stop and check it out. The organizers were thinking big: in one post, I read that they were expecting 400 visitors an hour. When I got there, I felt like the guy who’d waited until too late to go to the party. All the beer was gone and everyone had gone home except for the guy passed out on the couch! Actually, the whole event had already been torn down and was just a vacant lot with some trash still lying around. The tent was gone, everything. I didn’t just barely miss it; I really missed it. But it was supposed to be still going on; I’d checked the dates. One site indicates that it was supposed to be up for eight weeks, but closed after only three. Apparently, too many people liked the summer heat more than they let on and the thought of overpriced drinks served in a giant freezer wasn’t appealing at the time. I dunno, I was looking forward to a nice vodka martini in an ice glass...

    Whether it’s bad marketing, bad management, or something else, big summer indoor ice events have so far seemed to have more trouble than I would think they would; and apparently more than others would think as well. In contrast, a couple of more modest ventures, the Aurora Ice Museum and the ice lounge in Dubai (a place much hotter than Nice or London will ever get), have managed to stay open year round. Called the Chillout lounge and set in a mall, the Dubai venue was opened a little over a year ago while the Aurora Ice Museum, at Chena Hot Springs Resort near Fairbanks, Alaska, debuted in late 2003 as the Aurora Ice Hotel.

    Aside from it’s superhot location, the Chillout lounge has another claim to fame: it’s apparently the only ice lounge in the world with hot food and drinks on its menu. Instead of the ice glasses, hot drinks are served in insulated cups. The lounge seems to have enjoyed a successful first year in operation.

    The Aurora Ice Hotel, on the other hand, had a much tougher first year. I got to see it not too long after it was built, when I went to the World Ice Art Championships in March of 2004. As the United States’ first ice hotel, it ran afoul of fire codes and was nearly shut down by the fire marshal. Intended from the beginning to stay up year round, it was dubbed “The Dumbest Business Idea of the Year” by Forbes.com when Alaskan summer heat was too much for the insulated and liquid cooled structure. That summer, owner Bernie Karl, provided the memorable quote “I had a frozen asset. It's now a liquid asset," and then promptly made plans to rebuild. It was later reopened as the Aurora Ice Museum in a bid to steer clear of the fire codes. Technically, it’s not a hotel, but you can rent a portion of the museum, and you’re welcome to stay there overnight if you do. (wink, wink) The museum, which is filled with ice works by world champion carvers Steve and Heather Brice, is now lauded as an example of responsible environmental stewardship because the museum is actually cooled by harnessing the geothermal energy in the surrounding hot springs.

    For ice in the summer, it seems it’s “build it and they might come.” In the winter, people are often looking for something to do, while in the summer, they might have a tough time choosing what to do. To give yourself a chance against the plethora of summertime activities, it seems a bit of luck is required, along with a lot of innovation and perseverance. Modest expectations don’t seem to hurt either.