Regina organizations prepare for first-ever Frost Regina festival

With colder weather just around the corner, a group of organizations in Regina are preparing to launch a new winter festival in February of next year.

Frost Regina, which is expected to take place from February 4th to the 13th, will see events like ice skating, s'more-roasting, crokicurl, concerts and storytelling taking place all over the city.

The festival will be concentrated across four main hubs the Regina Downtown Business District, the Warehouse District, Wascana Centre and Evraz Place.

Regina Exhibition Association president and CEO Tim Reid said Frost Regina will be an opportunity to showcase a different side of the city than we usually see in its coldest months.

"We do recognize we're a winter city," he said. "Depending on the year, we can have four, five, six, 12 months of winter in Regina. And the reality of it is, we need to find opportunities to bring people together and to bring people to celebrate.

"Great cities have fantastic winter celebrations in Canada, and we felt that we needed an incredible city-wide celebration here in Regina as well."

This is not Regina's first winter festival, but Judith Veresuk, executive director of the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District, said this may be the first time there has been such a coordinated effort to bring all these winter activities together in the city at one time.

"This festival will [have] that ice-skating aspect as well as many other things you can do in the wintertime in Regina," she said. "Things like crokicurl, ice skating, we're looking at snowman-making contests, we're looking at making s'mores and maple candy.

"So there's all these small programming elements that we're looking to incorporate into the festival that are really quintessential Canadiana that all of our new Canadians and even all of our long-timers that have been around for years can come out and really experience in the various venues in our city."

Veresuk also hopes this will be an opportunity for businesses in the city to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused many major money-making events to be postponed, reduced or cancelled over the last two years.

Lisa Gibbons, executive director of the Regina Warehouse Business Improvement District, is also hoping to draw people back to local businesses.

"The Warehouse District intends to transform the west parking lot of the historic Centennial Mall into an illuminated winter wonderland featuring signature art installations, horse and wagon brewery tours, an ice bar and snow sculptures," she said.

And Monique Goffinet Miller, CEO of the Provincial Capital Commission, is particularly excited about the events that will be taking place in Wascana Centre during the festival.

She said many activities will take place on a "beautiful rink" on the surface of Wascana Lake, as well as throughout the park.

"We've already located and spoken with and secured a dog sledding company that will be offering two days of programming and will be teaching about Indigenous traditions with dog sledding, as well as allowing people to experience that throughout the park," she said.

Representatives of the organizations involved in Frost Regina went before Regina's executive committee Wednesday morning to request a $150,000 grant to help support the festival. They said the event is expected to have a six million dollar economic impact in Regina, and the executive council voted in support of providing the grant.

Councillor Terina Shaw was particularly enthused.

"I have hated winter for the 47 years I've been alive, and this is the first year that I'm actually excited about," she said.