Sculptors from all over the world gear up for Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival in Clearwater Beach
CLEARWATER BEACH, Fla. - The Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival, presented by Visit St. Pete Clearwater, starts Friday, and 17 sculptors from all over the world are in Clearwater Beach preparing now.
"We’re working with 1,000 tons of your beautiful beach sand here," sand sculptor Karen Fralich said.
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The backstory:
The sand, brought into the 24,000-square-foot exhibit straight from Clearwater Beach, acts as a symbol of how far the beach community has come. Six months ago, it seemed like the sand was everywhere but the beach.
"The back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, were devastating to Clearwater Beach," Lisa Chandler, the founder of the festival, said. "We are so blessed that our city government, the City of Clearwater, was able to put Clearwater Beach back together in a remarkable amount of time, sifting the sand, cleaning the sand."
"The resiliency of this beach community to come together, the importance of tourism. It is our number one economic engine for this beach… everyone came together to bring the sand back to life," Chandler said.
What they're saying:
Now, sand sculptors are adding life to the sand in another way. They’re building their creations over three weeks ahead of the festival’s 11th year. The theme this year is Dinoshores.
"I’m addicted to sand sculpting," Fralich said.
Fralich, who’s from Canada, has been sculpting sand for 31 years. This is her 10th year participating in the Sugar Sand Festival.
"Here in Clearwater, you have beautiful sand. It's very, very fine, powdery and fluffy, and when you add water to it, it packs really, really easily, and you can carve it," Fralich said. "First you have to compact the sand with water. You can't just work with a soft, fluffy dry pile. It has to be compacted, and it has to be very, very wet. And that takes a lot of elbow grease, but luckily, we're all crazy. We love to shovel and pound sand and get really, really dirty, which we do. And after you compact it, then you can start carving it, and you have to start at the top and carve your way down. Otherwise, everything you carve would fall on what you've carved below."
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Dig deeper:
They’ve expanded the exhibit this year to 24,000 square feet, and added an augmented reality portion, projecting images onto the sculptures to bring them to life.
"We have libraries of footage that we can put on to different types of things, and we also will go out and search for specific footage that we think or imagine might look good on here," Dave Gordon from Enlightened Monkey Arts, the company doing the augmented reality portion, said.
When the festival ends, they move the sand back onto the beach.
What To Know:
The Festival also includes eight nights of Frenchy’s free beach concerts, fireworks, free sand sculpting classes and more. You can also park for free in downtown Clearwater and hop on the Jolley Trolley that will take you to the Festival for free.
Tickets are $14 plus tax and kids three and under are free. There’s also a VIP option for $70 that includes dinner, drinks, a festival t-shirt, great seats for the concerts and entrance to the festival. It runs April 11 through April 27.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered through interviews with organizers and sculptors.
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