The Ice Castles open in the Twin Cities on Friday
The Ice Castles will open in New Brighton on Friday.
The handmade sculptures — featuring frozen thrones, ice-carved tunnels, slides, fountains, ice statues and more — will open at Long Lake Regional Park for the second time, which follows a pandemic-caused cancellation last winter.
And "new" this winter, visitors can "enjoy a short walk through a forest light grove and an ice sculpture garden."
Tickets for the popular winter attraction will go on sale "Tuesday evening," the company behind the event, Ice Castles LLC, said in a news release. You can find tickets online here.
The sculptures are embedded with color-changing LED lights.
Ice Castles
"Ice artisans" have spent the past eight weeks "growing, harvesting, and hand-placing icicles to create the life-size fairytale playground," the company says. And they've been "working around the clock" to get things ready for the grand opening on Friday.
This is the event year the Ice Castles have been held in Minnesota, and it's the second year the acre-sized event will call Long Lake Regional Park Home. Previous locations have included Mall of America, Eden Prairie, Stillwater and Excelsior.
It's one of five Ice Castles locations in the United States this winter, and is the first one to open. The others are in Utah, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and New York.
