Posted on June 23, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

Snow in the City, what a joke!

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Mary Fitzgerald Square will be turned into a white winter wonderland …… all in the name of fun in the inner city.

Yeah right!

Yesterday we shipped off to Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg where we’d hoped to share some moments like the one below.

To our dismay though the Snow in the City event, sponsored by Nando’s, The Star and JDA, turned out to be a miserable disaster.

When we heard on Radio 702 that the Johannesburg CBD was to be turned into a massive snow day we couldn’t resist taking Luke to play in some real snow.

We arrived shortly after 11:00 only to discover there was a massive queue for tickets. We stood in the line for nearly an hour and a half because Computicket only had two people issuing tickets at the event.

Entrance fee was R15 and for this cover price you were entitled to:

• 1 x 20 minute ice rink session
• 1 x bucket of snow
• 1 x snow drink
• 1 x free Nando’s crisps
• 5 x slides on the snow slope.

Luke is now super excited and is eager to hit the snow slope so I take him to wait in another long queue. Unfortunately for us the queue for the snow slope is about 900m long and there is no way either of us are prepared to stand for another hour just to go down the slope.

We decide that we’ll go ice skating. The queue for the ice rink is much shorter however as each skate is 20 minutes long the queue simply doesn’t move. To make matters worse I notice that the ice rink is not an ice rink at all, it’s a plastic mat that obviously simulates an ice rink.

No point in staying. We leave.

I’m utterly disgusted with the organisation of this event. The only real snow was on the snow slope and in the bucket you could get if you managed to brave the long queue. The ice rink was minute and was an insult to everyone.

There were far too many people to make this event viable and while I realise they were trying to raise money they should have limited numbers so that everyone could have a chance.

We were all expecting to see a massive ice rink (made from real ice) with a play area covered in snow but clearly the organisers of this event thought that a plastic mat and a bucket of ice would do the trick.

However, the biggest upset of this all was the very disappointed 4 year-old that never got to experience what we went there to do. Luke was so looking forward to playing in the snow and all he ended up with was the chance to throw some pieces of paper that somewhat resembled snow.