Frost Regina sees increase in traffic for 2022

The final numbers are out for this year’s Frost Regina winter festival.

More than 88,000 people attended the 10-day event, which was an increase of 8,000 from the inaugural event that took place throughout the Queen City in 2022.

While last year’s event was hampered by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s version went off without any restrictions, limitations or bad weather.

“We had 10 great days,” REAL president and CEO Tim Reid said Tuesday. “We had 10 fantastic days where the weather co-operated and all of our hubs were activated.”

Events for Frost took place at REAL District, downtown at Victoria Park, in Wascana Park and in the Warehouse District.

Reid noted that 55 per cent of the people who showed up at one of the four activations were there for the first time.

“It does suggest that some of us took the opportunity to go somewhere warm over the holiday season,” Reid said. “But those people that left were replaced with new Frost goers, new community members and new folks from across our province looking to celebrate winter.”

While the warm weather was great for the festival, it created some difficult situations for the ice carvers, but Reid says that was OK.

“The weather being as good as it was certainly was a big part of this and I think that’s why we saw such a high percentage of new visitors. To the flip side of that, though, it did have challenges,” Reid explained.

“We had a dragon (ice sculpture) become a rooster because it was +4 (Celsius). I think those ice carvers were incredibly creative.”

Going forward, Reid says he wants to keep the dates the event had for the last two years.

He noted that on the weekends, the festival was busy, but organizers still need to figure out how to get people out during the weekdays.

Some of the things he suggested were opening early on one of the Fridays, as there was no school for kids. Another one was opening early on the same day as the Super Bowl to ensure people can enjoy the festival as much as possible.

While organizers have already started to attempt to book and rebook acts for next year, Reid mentioned there could be some challenges when it comes to hosting next year’s event with the Canadian men’s curling championship coming to town.

“I think our intent would be to (keep Frost and the Brier) separated,” Reid said. “February is not our best tourism time of the month in Regina, so our hope is always how do we use this as an opportunity to boost tourism and the bottom line a little bit?

“We just have to understand what that looks like.”