Hokkaido Day 12
The biggest festival in the biggest city in Hokkaido.
Day 12 in Hokkaido is over! I went and took a cursory look at the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is incredible - it is absolutely massive, both in scope of the festival and the number of people who were there to enjoy the festival.
Odori park is an eleven-city-block majesty, which during this festival is thoroughly packed with large (and some enormous!) statues made of snow and peppered with additional activities and food vendors. The interesting thing about this festival compared to the other ones I’ve attended is the sponsorship mechanism - or rather, the many separate sponsorship mechanisms. At the Sapporo snow festival, everything from anime-style statues featuring characters from phone games, through videos playing advertisements, through an entire pavilion being sponsored by Shin Ramen (with a massive Coca-Cola building), there is an extensive network of braided sponsorship mechanisms that I assume is what funds the creation of multi-story snow lifts.
The public art aspect is intense and memorable, the fundraising mechanism is pretty incredible and I’m really excited to check out the festival again tomorrow more thoroughly. I’m also hoping to connect with some of the organizers to ask some historical questions about the Snow Festival - and check out some of this festival’s accessibility features.
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