“Bibai Yukinko” Festival

Bibai Yukinko’s history is second only to the Sapporo Snow Festival

Bibai Yukinko Festival starts in February every year. Its goals: feel the winter in Bibai, enjoy that winter, and cultivate children’s love for their hometown. This is Bibai’s high point of the year with visitors, performers, and many different organizations’ staffs involved.

Our hope is to give children a lasting memory

When it was first held in 1953 as a winter event, it was titled “The Winter Arts Festival”. A Snow Queen contest, a snow sculpture exhibition, a snow parade, and more were all held. So much hustle and bustle that you couldn’t squeeze between city folks walking about- this was a basis for the Bibai Yukinko Festival.

Later, the festival was renamed the “Bibai Yukinko Festival” (1981~1992), and again to the “Pipaoi Hometown Snow Festa” (1993-2010). But since 2011, for the sake of the nostalgia those children (today’s adults) have felt, the name has returned to “Bibai Yukinko Festival” so that they, the children, might return, too.

Today, the Bibai Jaycees are the main organizers. The highlight of the event is a giant snow sculpture with a slide leading from the top. It takes three weeks for the men of the Ground Self Defense Forces, Bibai Base, to construct. We’ll create some splendid moments, and all the warmth of a Bibai winter.

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