75th Sapporo Snow Festival 2025

Temperature – Average 3 degrees

Held nearly every year with a few exceptions, Sapporo Snow festival is held across the city of Sapporo in three main locations. It usually centers around feature pieces and the locations are generally divided to Ice Sculptors, Snow sculptors which also double up as stages surrounded by vendors and a location further out more geared to the younger audience and families.

The event started in 1950 when some students-built snow sculptures in Odori park and the rest as they say is history. Odori park remains the central most hub of the event where one can find snow sculptures that tower high and double up as stages.

There are international competitions held and competitions for more local level participants. So, the range of skill on display is vast. The ice sculptors are intricate, and they pride themselves in using the clearest ice possible. There are live displays of the ice sculpting method and onlookers may even get lucky to hold some of the display pieces and pose for images.

Sculptors range from clever advertising for local business to anime, movie and famous celebrities. The local sculptors are even more varied including memes and more viral content.

The event gets very crowded, so some planning maybe required to get the most from your visit. My venture to the event was split into a nice visit to the ice sculptors and day at the main location. I had a larger itinerary so did not want to spend much more time there. The event spans many street blocks so there is a huge variety of food options and places to take warm breaks. There are also warm spaces in the locations themselves most notably this year they had a space sponsored by Coke Cola who also released special bottle designs unique to the event itself. I noticed around Hokkaido that unique bottle designs for specific aspects of Hokkaido could be collected.

The event is completely free, and I recommend you wear shoes with good grip as there is snow and ice on the ground. Hotels for this event book up nearly half a year in advance! This is perhaps my most important piece of advice. If you decide to explore this event next year you will want to book an hotel as early as possible. I booked mine in September and that was perhaps a few months late as I had very limited choice. My hotels for the 5-day trip came to around 80,000 yen. I saw rooms going for that same price for one night during the event. Be warned this needs planning but it is worth a visit if you are in Hokkaido one January.