21-02-2025
Frozen fun kicks off downtown at Erie Winter Carnival
Cold winds and steady snow set the stage Thursday night to kick off this year's winter carnival in downtown Erie.
The Erie Downtown Partnership is hosting its fifth annual Winter Carnival this weekend, bringing live music and winter fun to State Street.
Many Erie residents are probably fed up with the cold temperatures and heavy snow by now but this weekend the Erie Downtown Partnership is giving people a chance to embrace the winter.
The Erie Winter Carnival kicked off at the flagship city food hall Thursday night with a live performance from Lifethrumusic, a gospel band that doubles as a music mentoring program.
'Oh man, there's no better way to spend the night. There's no better way to spend the night. We communicate, we enjoy each other, and it's creativity like exploding. Sometimes, we don't even plan a song, we sit and we just fill it out and just have a blast,' said Patrick Lyons, the bassist for Lifethrumusic.
And over at the Perry Square stage, the festivities continued with the Flagship City Sports and Sips Curling League.
One player said he has no problem curling out in the cold and even met his fiance through the sport.
'I think it's just a cool thing to bring to Erie. I've always seen it on TV and it looked cool, so it's awesome to be able to try out a version of it,' said Steve Gibbens, a curler.
We got music. We got curling. We got a ton of stuff happening here, but there's something missing here at the Erie Winter Carnival, and the events manager said that it's actually going to add to the overall experience.
'Unfortunately, our ice sculptures are going to have to be moved to next weekend for circumstances kind of out of our control, but we're used to pivoting, we do it with weather and during COVID all the time, so we're having two weekends of winter fun here at the end of February and we're going to keep the party going next weekend,' said Dave Tamulonis, Erie Downtown Partnership events manager.
Over 60 ice sculptures will decorate Perry Square next weekend.
But in the meantime, the show goes on at the winter carnival with fire dancing Friday night, a soup-tasting stroll Saturday afternoon and plenty of live music at local businesses all weekend long.
If you would like to see the full winter carnival schedule this weekend,
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