GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The warmer than usual weather didn’t prevent people from coming out to Ah-Nab-Awen Park to enjoy World of Winter’s frog display. Many stopped to take pictures of the colorful creatures and plan to return tonight to see the giant frogs light up like a Christmas tree.
“There's not too much snow so we'll take a walk, and we'll look at the frogs and it's really quite nice,” said David Kaczanowski.
The annual World of Winter provides unique experiences from art installations to fire and ice shows that are free for anyone to attend. This year’s festivities were a bit delayed due to the weather but returned a few weeks ago.
Bill Kirk from Downtown Grand Rapids, Inc. says despite the melting snow, his team continues to work around the clock to make the events happen.
“When we got that big snowstorm on the opening weekend, we did have to adjust and postpone some events, but we work to reschedule everything and try to make sure we have a full calendar and the snow is always a great backdrop for the festival and makes the installations look beautiful and really kind of activates the downtown environment, but we can do it without snow as well,” Kirk said.
The gloomy weather was ideal for those who enjoy photography and couldn’t miss the opportunity to see the froggy creatures.
“We're just getting down here and are going to be on the way home, but we had to stop by and see what these look like and we'll probably come back later tonight and take some colorful pictures,” Kaczanowski said.
One of the canceled events, Fire and Ice, is now happening at Rosa Parks Circle tonight and is free for everyone. Organizers of the event say they are adapting to changing weather conditions to still provide fun for families to enjoy.
“We both love to take pictures and they're so colorful and with that well maybe a sunny day would be good but a gloomy day too, you’d probably to get more color without as much glare,” Diana Kaczanowski said.
Kirk says with or without snow, the show will go on as planned.
“Even if the weather is really bad one day and you don't want to brave the elements, you can come out another day because you've got two months to enjoy the festival,” Kirk said. Our team works really hard to keep everything up and running so that people can come out and enjoy the world of winter.”
World of Winter continues from now until March 10. To find out what day you can enjoy some of the fun World of Winter has to offer, visit their website.
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