Ice-A-Fair brings 60 ice sculptures, thousands of visitors to Vermilion

VERMILION — Vermilion residents Maureen and Ken Bilancini are regular — and enthusiastic — attendees of their city's annual ice sculpture festival.They recalled wandering the downtown streets during a blizzard one year. That made for an Ice-A-Fair as picturesque as a Norman Rockwell painting, Maureen Bilancini said. Another year brought warmer temperatures, they said. That meant the ice didn't hold up for too long.On Saturday, when Main Street Vermilion hosted the ninth annual Ice-A-Fair, the couple said the clear skies and cool temperatures cast an ideal day for a favorite event."This weather is a blessing for the ice," Maureen Bilancini said.Main Street Vermilion estimated that thousands of people checked out Ice-A-Fair on Saturday, according to Beth Eberhard, a committee member who spent the day dishing out hot cocoa in the nonprofit's office on Main Street. By 1 p.m. or so, just about two hours into the festival, the office counted about 500 people through its doors.Ice-A-Fair this year placed 60 ice sculptures, sponsored by area businesses or organizations and crafted by Elegant Ice Creations, based in Broadview Heights, along downtown sidewalks. It also organized six ice carving demonstrations and half-hour tours on the sightseeing-oriented Lolly the Trolley. As a new feature this year, Main Street Vermilion debuted a fire-and-ice display in Exchange Park at 6 p.m. Eberhard described it as a bonfire with a sculpture in the center of the flames. Capping the event was a "meltdown party" at the Vermilion Boat Club at 7:30 p.m. There, Eberhard said, attendees could expect food, music and raffle drawings. Among the more notable prizes was "cold hard cash" — $100 bills fully encased in ice.Ice-A-Fair is intended to promote downtown Vermilion, according to Eberhard, particularly at a time when winter weather negatively affects the area's pedestrian traffic. The ice sculptures stand as incentive to come to Vermilion — and, as the shopping bags held by some visitors demonstrated, check at local shops or restaurants at the same time.Jordan Stemple and Larisa Kuehn spent part of their afternoon watching Elegant Ice Creations shave a cylindrical hunk of ice into a lighthouse in Friendship Park. In town from Indiana to visit Stemple's family this weekend, they said they were enjoying the festival."I love Vermilion," Stemple said. "It's fun being out here."The lighthouse carving demonstrations also drew the curious eyes of R.J. Aschenbach, 7; his sister, Hanna Aschenbach, 12; and their friend Naudia Balek, 11. The trio, who checked out the festival with the siblings' father, were quick to name their favorites sculptures: R.J. liked one depicting R2-D2, a Star Wars character, while the girls preferred a heart-shaped carving.The children also liked a particularly popular sculpture on Main Street. There, Canine Companion for Independence sponsored an ice-carved dog wearing the same yellow vest as the trainee puppies who sniffed and played beside it.Bonnie and Rich Sweebe, of Strongsville, came out to Ice-A-Fair with their trainee dogs: 18-month-old Steffi and 4-month-old Venus. They said the dogs, who learn a wide variety of commands with their volunteer trainers as puppies before moving on to specialized training, were proving themselves as crowd-pleasers on Saturday.Maureen Bilancini said she sees Ice-A-Fair as a positive event for Vermilion."This is an exciting time for the community," she said. Aaron Costic and Jeff Meyers of Elegant Ice Creations put on a live ice carving demonstration in Friendship Park at Vermilion's Ice-A-Fair on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. Elegant Ice Creations sculptor Jeff Meyers focuses on sanding down rough edges of a Vermilion Lighthouse ice sculpture at the Ice-A-Fair in downtown Vermilion on Saturday. Elegant Ice Creations owner Aaron Costic carves details into an ice sculpture of the Vermilion Lighthouse during a demonstration at the Ice-A-Fair on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017 in downtown Vermilion. The crowd gathers around the finished Vermilion Lighthouse sculpture after a live demonstration at Friendship Park in Vermilion during the Ice-A-Fair on Saturday. [gallery]A large crowd gathers as Jeff Meyers and Aaron Costic from Elegant Ice Creations start building the Vermilion Lighthouse out of ice during a demonstration at the Ice-A-Fair in downtown Vermilion on Saturday, Feb. 4, 217.