Gaylord Rockies announces theme, dates for 2024 ICE! exhibit

The Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center on Thursday announced the theme and dates for its 2024 ICE! exhibit – the annual holiday-season ice sculpture showcase that consumes more than 17,000 square feet of convention space at the Aurora resort.

This year’s theme is Polar Express , the iconic book originally published in 1985 and brought to life in the 2004 movie. The ICE! exhibit will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the animated film.

Scenes teased on the resort’s website include a passenger train car with dancing waiters, several ice slides with an ice sculpture of the famous Polar Express steam locomotive as a backdrop, and a North Pole setting at the exhibit’s end featuring elves and an 11-foot ice Santa.

A total of 10 scenes will be included in the exhibit.

This year’s show runs from Nov. 22, 2024 through Jan. 1, 2025. Tickets are available on the Gaylord Rockies site.

The popular exhibit is created by 40 so-called ice artisans in Harbin, China, who spend more than six weeks carving 6,000 blocks of ice weighing 2 million pounds in total.

Different Gaylord resorts have different themes in a given year – and each carry a different theme than the year before. Last year's theme at Gaylord Rockies was A Christmas Story . Previously, Colorado's show has carried themes like Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Elf .