Sapporo Snow Festival

The three sites

The 2027 festival runs for eight days, from Thursday 4 February to Thursday 11 February, a national holiday, at three sites. Entry to all of them is free. The organizers publish the 2027 maps and programs on snowfes.com from the middle of December 2026, so the details below come from the 2026 edition and from the outline announced in July.

Odori Park is the main site: about 1.1 kilometers of snow sculptures from West 1-chome to West 11-chome. The plan for 2027 puts the five giant sculptures on blocks 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10, with small and medium ones between them and the international snow sculpture contest on block 11. In 2026 the site held 136 sculptures. It is a public park, so you can walk it at any hour during the festival, and the lights stay on until 10pm.

Susukino is the ice site, on Ekimae-dori between South 4 and South 6, right outside Susukino subway station. In 2026 it showed 60 ice sculptures, among them the entries of a carving contest that ran through the first night. The street was closed to cars from 3pm on weekdays and from 10am on weekends, and the sculptures are lit until 11pm, or 10pm on the last day.

Tsudome, a sports dome in the northeast of the city, is the family site and the only one with opening hours: 10am to 4pm. Outside are tube slides, a sledding slope and snow play areas. Inside are more play equipment, food stalls and places to rest. Hats and gloves are required on the attractions.

The festival began in 1950, when local junior and senior high school students put six snow sculptures in Odori Park. Today the giant ones are built by the Ground Self-Defense Force and a citizens' production committee, with snow trucked in from around Sapporo from 7 January. The work takes about a month.

When to go within the week

Odori and Susukino are after-dark sites. Both are lit, Odori until 10pm and Susukino until 11pm. Tsudome is the opposite and closes at 4pm. That splits a day cleanly: Tsudome in the morning if you have children, Odori at dusk, Susukino on the way to dinner or after it.

The 2027 dates include one weekend, 6 and 7 February, and end on a public holiday. On weekends and holidays Tsudome hands out numbered tickets for its tube slide when it is crowded: 1,500 at 10am and 500 more at noon in 2026. If the slide is the reason you are going, be at the gate at opening or go on a weekday.

Do not save Odori for the morning after. The sculptures are demolished the morning after the festival ends, so that none can collapse on a visitor. Coming a day early does not work either: Odori and Tsudome are closed until the first day. Susukino is the exception, because the ice carving starts about three days ahead and can be watched from the street.

Getting there and around

From New Chitose Airport the Rapid Airport train reaches Sapporo Station in about 37 minutes and runs roughly every 12 minutes for most of the day, according to the city's tourism site. The airport bus takes about 70 minutes to the center.

All three sites are on the subway. Odori Station, under the park, is where the Namboku, Tozai and Toho lines meet. Susukino Station is on the Namboku line. For Tsudome, take the Toho line to Sakaemachi, then walk 15 minutes or ride the shuttle bus from the station. Tsudome has no parking and no drop-off point.

In the center you can stay off the ice for most of the way. An underground walkway of about 520 meters links Sapporo Station to Odori, a 10-minute walk, and is open from 5:45am to half past midnight. From there the underground route continues in a straight line to Susukino Station. Use it between the station, the park and the ice sculptures, and come up only at the sites.

Where to stay

Choose the station you will use most. Odori puts you at the main site and on all three subway lines, including the Toho line for Tsudome. Susukino is beside the ice sculptures. The Sapporo Station area suits a short trip: the airport train arrives there, and the underground walkway brings you to Odori without going outside. Nakajima Koen, south of Susukino on the Namboku line, is the quieter choice.

The festival covers a weekend and ends on a public holiday, so price the nights of 5, 6 and 10 February first and book with free cancellation. If the center is full for your dates, look along the Namboku line, which serves Sapporo Station, Odori and Susukino in turn. The areas are compared in where to stay in Sapporo.

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Cold, costs and mistakes to avoid

Sapporo's coldest weeks run from late January to early February. The city's tourism site gives the February average as a high of 0.1°C and a low of -6.6°C, with 147 centimeters of snowfall over the month. Buildings and trains are heated hard, so wear layers you can take off, and add a hat, gloves and something over your ears.

Shoes matter more than the coat. The festival's own advice is winter shoes with a grooved sole. Without them, buy strap-on anti-slip pads for about 1,000 yen at the official shop on the Odori site, at a convenience store or at a station kiosk. The official shop also lends walking sticks free of charge.

The festival itself costs nothing, since admission is free at all three sites. Budget for food at the stalls, the subway to Tsudome and the room. If you are passing through with bags, the city opens a temporary luggage storage point during the festival.

Three mistakes are easy to avoid. One is seeing Odori only by day, when the lighting is the reason to go in the evening. Another is arriving at Tsudome after lunch on a weekend, when the slide tickets may already be gone. The third is planning around one sculpture or one show before the middle of December, when the 2027 program comes out.

Skip if you are in Hokkaido to ski and have one free evening at most. Odori alone is 1.1 km of walking in the cold, and the 2027 dates take in a weekend and a public holiday.