Frost Festival officials try to keep conditions cool for ice sculptures as warm weather hits the Queen City

Above seasonal weather conditions are keeping Frost Festival officials busy as they do their best to keep conditions cool at the REAL district hub.

Barry Collier and his team are hard at work making sure the ice sculptures at the Frost Festival are not melting away and looking their best for visitors the rest of the week.

“What is deteriorating in the ice is the sun right now as they can take a bit of the warm, but once the sun hits it and warms the ice up from inside then you start seeing white ice and clarity,” Collier explained.

With the sun beaming down on the sculptures, even the ice can start breaking a sweat and falling apart.

“Once the sun gets out of for a couple hours you will start seeing the ice starting to sweat and then eventually you'll start seeing more lines getting in the ice,” Collier said.

Collier credits the REAL hub for their efforts in making sure the sculptures are well kept.

“They've been coming out, they've been tarping everything at night and are taking the tarps off just before lunchtime,” Collier said.

Cathleen Betker is the manager of major events at the REAL hub and said while the weather is nice for the public, it can be a safety issue for organizers.

“The weather is phenomenal for families, but for us, it definitely poses a few challenges,” Betker explained. “Our ice sculptures are probably one of our biggest concerns is making sure that they're maintained and look beautiful for the entirety of the event.”

While the warm weather is impacting events outside, Betker reminded everyone that inside venues continue to shine.

“The benefit of coming to Frost REAL is that we have a ton of indoor programming, so if we do hit a situation where either it is too cold or too warm, we do still have a lot of activations available indoors,” Betker said. “We've got the glow, we've got our petting zoo, we've got our play zone.”

Frost is scheduled to wrap up on Sunday.