China's Olympic Winter Wonderland

Beijing's Bird's Nest is turned into a winter wonderland to make money.

ByABC News
December 23, 2009, 8:39 AM

BEIJING, Dec. 23, 2009 — -- If Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt were to return to the Bird's Nest in Beijing today, he'd better bring a pair of skates. There's a mountain in the arena and the ground is covered with ice and snow.

Is China preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics?

No. It's just trying to make some money by attracting visitors to the Beijing National Stadium.

The "Happy Snow and Ice Season" kicked off last weekend. The first thing you notice once inside the stadium is a 65-foot high snow mountain. It serves as the backdrop for a snow stage on which rock concerts will be held during the Christmas and the Chinese New Year periods.

Ten snow machines have been working 24 hours nonstop since Dec. 10, pumping out 25,000 tons of artificial snow and creating a 3-foot-thick layer of manmade snow to cover the 68,000 square yards of stadium floor, which offers ski and snow board slopes, skating rinks and plenty of snow sculptures.

The winter wonderland doesn't come cheap, however. About $7.3 million has been spent to bring about and maintain the snowy transformation.

To cover the cost, organizers hope to attract some about 20,000 visitors a day. But with the winter chill and tickets at a pricey $26, that goal may be too optimistic.

Only 6,000 visitors showed up over the weekend, far fewer than the organizers' expectations, according to Bird's Nest officials.

But those who came enjoyed it. "It's a great idea," said Wei Shen, who came with his wife and his 4-year-old son, "Now we don't have to go far to really have some winter fun."

Yan Yiling, a 24-year-old girl visiting from the south of the country, said, "I've never seen this much snow before. The Bird's Nest represents our country and the snow will help bring more visitors."

Since its dazzling debut in the the summer of 2008, the Bird's Nest hasn't been of much use.

In the beginning, it was not an issue. The stadium simply fed itself financially. People swarmed in to admire its spectacular architecture and relive the glory of Beijing Olympic Games.

At its peak, the stadium would receive up to 50,000 visitors every day, each paying the $7 entrance fee just to walk on the stadium floor. That used to contribute 70 percent of the stadium's total revenue. But when the Olympic fever faded away, visitors shrank to a few thousand a day.