When Will the Ice be Out?

It's an event that has national attention every year, and sells thousands of dollars worth of tickets, but are tickets selling during the sluggish economy?

The famous Joe's Pond Ice Out is under way in West Danville and many people have continued to be apart of the tradition. Joe's Pond Ice Out Co-Chair Jane Brown says, "so yea... we've got people all over the continent and a few foreign countries."

Brown explains, "It started with the first year they maybe made a couple hundred dollars and uh we've grown considerably since then. Now winners can get as much as maybe five-thousand, last year it was pretty close to five-thousand."

"The ice out is an old tradition. Each year people buy tickets from the store for one-dollar for every guess they make, whoever guesses closest to the date and time when the ice breaks on the pond, wins a grand prize."

She said, "Each year they sell about 12,000 tickets. They take out the expenses then split it fifty-fifty. Last year the total was about $5,000 dollars."

Tickets go on sale in July because the event is so anticipated by thousands of people. However, with the weak economy, is it affecting ticket sales this year?

Brown said, "We think it's about the same as it has been in the past. It's hard to tell now it's still early and there hasn't been a lot of snow, so a lot of snowmobilers and so forth, that normally would come and buy tickets because it's great, it's fun, you know it's a good contest, and they haven't been around quite as much but we still think we're just about normal."

Diane Jejer from the Hasting's Store in West Danville says, "They are getting quite a few people buying the ice-out tickets, despite the bad economy. They're the same as last year. They're not exceeding the amount we've done in the past, but time is of the essence. People will start buying a lot of tickets with the ice starting to melt."

Last year's winner was from Richmond, Vermont with an ice out guess of April twentieth at 10:21 pm. All of the proceeds made from the Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest fund the annual Danville July fourth fireworks. Tickets are on sale now through April first.