The 17th annual Loop Ice Carnival in the Delmar Loop was a success! While our team here at Full Spectrum Ice Sculptures has been an integral part of this winter festival in St. Louis, Missouri for years, this year’s event was extra special to us because this is the first time we’ve had a permanent home base here. From our brand new shop in the heart of St. Louis, we hand crafted over fifty uniquely branded ice sculptures to showcase the local businesses and culture of our beloved city. These included themed St. Louis ice sculptures, pieces featuring businesses’ logos and mascots, gigantic photo opp displays, and even a live ice demo by our company owner and ice master, Sean!
We displayed our St. Louis ice sculptures all over the Delmar Loop, allowing guests of all ages to enjoy the ice while browsing the local stores, snapping pictures with the stilt walkers, and grabbing a bite to eat at one of the many restaurants in the Loop.
In this post, we’ll show you some of our favorite St. Louis ice sculptures we created for the Loop Ice Carnival. We hope that the creativity and uniqueness of each piece will inspire you to add a little icy flair to your next event!
Delmar Loop Takeover
The Loop Ice Carnival is an annual winter festival in the Delmar Loop in St. Louis, Missouri. This historical shopping area is famous in St. Louis for its beloved local businesses and family-friendly community events like this one. The original intent behind the Loop Ice Carnival was to help promote the small businesses in the Loop, giving community members a chance to shop, grab some great food and drink, and support the local economy as a whole. It has grown and evolved so much over the years with more businesses participating in the fun and more activities added to the lineup, but the original heart behind the festival remains the same.
Our team at Full Spectrum Ice Sculptures loves giving back to the community and helping other local businesses thrive, so we have happily been a part of the Delmar Loop Ice Carnival for years.
For this year’s 2024 Carnival, we were thrilled to have both the East Side and West Side of the Delmar Loop participate, expanding the festival to even more businesses and guests! This resulted in a record-breaking amount of St. Louis ice sculptures for this event: We created a total of 57 ice sculptures!
We took over the Ice Carnival with our epic ice sculptures, showcasing the logo and branding of each business in the Delmar Loop in a creative way. We also carved St. Louis ice sculptures with imagery representative of St. Louis’ history and culture. From the iconic Gateway Arch to Chuck Berry to Fredbird, we pulled out all the stops to show the community how much St. Louis means to us!
Keep reading to see all the pieces we created!
Branded St. Louis Ice Sculptures in the Delmar Loop
One thing we love about the Delmar Loop is that it’s filled with local businesses. Whether they’ve been around for decades or are new on the block, these businesses have helped the Delmar Loop preserve its local color. To highlight this, we carved an ice sculpture for nearly every business in the Loop. Each ice sculpture displayed the businesses’ logo, mascot, and/or branding. On the day-of, we set each sculpture in front of the corresponding shop, so that people would instantly be attracted to their storefront.
These branded St. Louis ice sculptures also presented a unique photo opportunity for each business, as families snapped pictures with and of the ice, sharing them to social media throughout the day. Guests had a blast wandering from shop to shop and from ice sculpture to ice sculpture, eager to see what was next. Each ice design was a wonderful “surprise-and-delight” moment for all the festival attendees!
Check out some of our favorites below and just imagine what we could do with your branding by putting it in ice!
St. Louis Ice Sculptures: Themed Photo Opps
In addition to the dozens of branded ice sculptures we produced, we also created a variety of themed photo opp ice sculptures for people to have fun with throughout the Delmar Loop. These specialty ice sculptures featured facial cutouts that guests could put their faces through to capture a fun and unique photo.
We themed some of these after famous St. Louis icons, like Chuck Berry and a St. Louis City Soccer player. Other photo opp ice sculptures had a winter theme to align with the season, such as a pair of eskimos and an adorable snowman.
This type of ice sculpture is a great way to not only showcase your logo and branding at your event, but also to promote your business online! The impact of your ice sculpture increases exponentially when eventgoers share photos of it on social media, and these photo opp ice sculptures are made with this in mind. Guests love interacting with the ice in this way, and they’re sure to share the pictures on their social media platforms: Cross-promotion for the win!
Live Ice Carving Demo at Fitz’s Root Beer
The Loop Ice Carnival boasts so many fun entertainment options, from stilt walkers to character meet-and-greets to this year’s new drone show, but the live ice carving demonstration is definitely a highlight of the day! Before everyone’s eyes, Sean transformed raw blocks of ice into a one-of-a-kind, themed St. Louis ice sculpture! Live demos are immediate crowd pleasers, as guests are drawn to the area by the sounds of the chain saw and then they’re riveted by watching the magic happen.
This year, Sean held the live demo in front of Fitz’s Root Beer in the Delmar Loop. He cut, carved, buffed, and engraved an epic ice sculpture that featured a snowboarding bear under the Gateway Arch. His snowboard read “Loop Ice Carnival 2024” and he was even able to hold a real root beer bottle from Fitz’s!
Needless to say, it was a smash! Sean drew and held a crowd the entire time and everyone was in awe over his work. They raved about it for the rest of the day!
Live demos are an incredibly unique element to add to your event. Most times, guests will not have seen an ice carving demonstration anywhere else, instantly creating an unforgettable memory for them.
Ready to Book your Ice Sculpture?
Ice sculptures make great additions to any event, from a wedding to a corporate fundraiser to an anniversary or birthday party. If any ice sculptures from the Delmar Loop Ice Carnival in this post caught your eye, make sure to reach out to our team below to start your order!
Full Spectrum Ice Sculptures has been creating custom ice sculptures for over 10 years and can guide you in selecting a unique and personalized ice sculpture for your next celebration. Connect with us to start planning your icy creation today and make sure to follow us on Instagram for the latest and greatest happenings!
St. Louis Ice Sculptures at the Loop Ice Carnival 2024
We were so glad to see that everyone loved the St. Louis ice sculptures we created for this year’s 2024 Loop Ice Carnival! The event overall was an overwhelming success and it couldn’t have been possible without the help of our talented partners:
Samantha Smugala, Director, Delmar Loop
Jessica Bueler, Executive Director, University City Loop
Ryan Griffore, Webmaster, University City Loop
Joe Edwards, Owner, Moonrise Hotel, Blueberry Hill, Peacock Loop Diner
Eclipse Restaurant at the Moonrise Hotel