The Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival offers a free, family-friendly gathering with hands-on activities, food and beverage vendors, and People’s Choice voting in Washington Park and inside the Dubuque Museum of Art from 12-4 PM. Activities include a community snow sculpting area with preformed blocks of snow and tools provided for anyone to try their hand at snow sculpting.

Throughout the week, teams of professional, amateur, and collegiate sculptures will compete for a $1000 prize by carving giant snow creations from 6x6x8 blocks of solid snow. All teams will have the chance to be crowned the People’s Choice Award-winner on Sunday, which comes with a $300 cash prize.

The Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival is an annual celebration of community creativity, and coincides with more than the Super Bowl this year. The 2025 festival also serves as the closing event for DuMA’s landmark exhibition, Dubuque by Design: Celebrating 150 Creative Years. That exhibition inspires this year’s theme: Creative Community. We believe the act of creating together inspires us to push the boundaries of art, strengthens our community, and is just good fun.

Winter Arts is a community festival produced by the Dubuque Museum of Art (DuMA) in partnership with the City of Dubuque’s Office of Arts and Culture. For more info, visit www.cityofdubuque.org/winterarts or call 563-581-6988.