Navy Pier Transformed for Winter WonderFest
During the holiday season CSSI transformed Navy Pier's Festival Hall into a 90,000-square-feet magical winter wonderland. CSSI Designer Tom Ryan worked closely with Navy Pier's Directors of Special Events and Entertainment, along with Gail Steffen, Director of Convention Services, to bring General Manager Jon Clay's spectacular vision to life.

Project Managers Ross Hamilton and Rick Boultinghouse began working on the project in February 2000 and had to keep the project on track through several rounds of redesigns before the final concept was chosen. Joy Holden was the assistant project manger and Joe Strange acted as job lead on the project. CSSI provided the overall supervision during installation and made sure the project was completed on time and on budget.

Winter WonderFest glittered under the 20,000 icicle lights that CSSI provided. In order to cover the whole hall with a canopy of lights, six-foot-wide swags were joined into hundred-foot sections and strung across the ceiling. CSSI also decked the halls with over 500 lit trees. Sponsors and foreign consulates decorated 60 trees with themed ornaments and an enormous 42-foot-tall tree was decorated by a CSSI crew and placed in the center of the hall to delight visitors.

In only its first year, Winter WonderFest featured tons of activities, games, and entertainment for young and old alike. The Main Performance Stage, sporting a lit gazebo roof, was loaded with Pier performers that entertained guests with Christmas carols, puppet shows, and other live performances.

The Pier set up a story-telling stage and craft area where children could decorate cookies, and make ornaments, puppets, and New Year's Eve hats. Kids could test their skills on huge inflatable climbing walls, obstacle courses and a giant slide, as well as riding the Reindeer Express, a trackless electronic train that took kids and parents around the event. Another special activity for kids was visiting Santa's Village, where Santa greeted kids at his enormous gingerbread house.

But perhaps the coolest part of the event was the Arctic Ice Rink. The rink, measuring 124-feet-long and 70-feet-wide, had plenty of room for kids and adults to skate up a storm.

The wildly popular event drew in more than three times the number of guests the Pier had projected and the Pier and CSSI are already planning an even bigger and better event for next year.

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