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Party planning

Lake Placid 2023 FISU Games officials plan Main Street festival

The cauldron for the Lake Placid 2023 FISU Winter World University Games is seen here at Brewster Park Tuesday, Dec. 13, a day after it was unveiled. It will be lit during the Games’ opening ceremony on Jan. 12. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

LAKE PLACID — A 10-day festival during the Lake Placid 2023 FISU Winter World University Games will make downtown Lake Placid a lively place, featuring daily medal ceremonies, free live music, games and entertainment, and winter sport-related activities.

The Lake Placid 2023 FISU Games Festival will run from Jan. 13 to 22, along the village’s Main Street. Open from 1 to 9 p.m. each day, the FISU Games Festival Village will feature places to both warm up and get pumped up for the duration of the Games.

The Games is expected to bring together almost 1,500 collegiate athletes, age 17-25, from almost 600 universities in 44 countries to participate in Alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling, freestyle and freeski, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, short track speedskating, snowboarding, ski jumping, and speedskating. Athletes will compete in 86 events in 12 winter sports at venues in Lake Placid, Wilmington, Saranac Lake, North Creek, Canton and Potsdam.

Starting Jan. 13, the festival village is scheduled to open at 1 p.m., and medal ceremonies will be held every night at Mid’s Park. On Jan. 22, medals will be awarded at the closing ceremony in the Olympic Center’s 1980 Rink following the men’s gold-medal ice hockey game. That evening will close with a performance on Main Street by Mix Master Mike and a live drone show over Mirror Lake (weather permitting).

Medal ceremonies at the festival village will be followed by free music on Main Street from 7:30 to 9 p.m. The festival also features warming domes, s’mores, hot beverages, ice sculptures, stilt walkers, ski and snowboard rail jams, and interactive games such as laser biathlon, luge, snowball cornhole tournaments, curling and hockey shot.

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe will showcase traditional skills and demonstrations and sell goods from the former Gap building. To add to the energy, local TV and radio will be broadcasting live from Main Street.

Entertainment continues into “Late Night Sessions” with more free live music at Smoke Signals from 10 p.m. to midnight.

Featured artists on the Main Stage will include Mercy Union, Dentist, Yawn Mower, Annie in the Water, Garcia Peoples, Jonathan Francis, Maddy O’Neal and Marco Benevento.

Late night artists will include DJ Matt Hagen, Jaren Hart, DJ Logic, The Comb Down, Delicate Steve and Echo Plum. JIM — one of the area’s most popular bands from the mid-1990s — is reuniting to perform on the Main Stage and during Lake Night Sessions.

During the Games, the village of Lake Placid will restrict access to Main Street, requiring a special parking permit to access the closed-off section between 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 12 to 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 23. This restricted window will be in place between the intersection of Main Street and Saranac Avenue to the north, and state Route 86 and mile post marker 86-1202-1089 to the south (the southernmost driveway of the Grand Adirondack Hotel). On the southernmost portion of Main Street, businesses and residents located between Mirror Lake Drive and Cummings Road, and between Parkside Drive and the Grand Adirondack Hotel will also require a permit to allow access.

For more information about the Lake Placid 2023 FISU Games, or to purchase tickets, visit www.lakeplacid2023.com.

Starting at $1.44/week.

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