ice sculpture fail 2: when ice falling is good business

When an ice sculpture fails, it CAN be very good for your ice sculpting business…as long as it wasn’t your sculpture that fell. I have had clients that won’t use other carvers because they’re worried about a sculpture falling during the event. One client had a sculpture fall because it wasn’t durable enough for the conditions at the event. Later I talked to the carver, and he told me that the client had put the sculpture in front of a fan on a warm day at an outside event. The sculpture deteriorated rapidly and ended up falling while the guests were there.

In the case above, the client would deserve most of the blame if somehow the carver had no way of knowing about the fan. If he set the carving up in front of a working fan though, then it’s his fault. Whenever possible, I try very hard to keep my sculptures away from fans, large ventilation vents, doors that open to outside, heat lamps, intense lighting, and any other spot that would up the rate of melting.

It’s the job of every carver to look into the future and try to anticipate what could happen if the sculpture isn’t placed in an ideal spot. If the sculptor isn’t setting up the sculpture, then whoever is needs to know what will and won’t work. But that can be especially tricky; I’ve talked with people who though that AC or a fan would keep the ice sculpture cool. An ice sculpture fail in that case is a lot more likely 🤦‍♂️