The design concept and plans for the upcoming Harbin Ice and Snow World and the Sun Island Snow Sculpture Expo -- highlights of the 35th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival -- were unveiled at a news conference held in Harbin on Dec 2.

Liu Mingyu, chairman of Harbin Sun Island Group Co, said that the events will this year share the theme “Integration of Ice and Snow, Companionship of Happiness”.

Liu added that his group was aiming to create an integration development model for the two featured attractions on Sun Island.

He said it would do this through design coordination, creative interconnections, marketing synergies, ticketing integration and road network interconnections. 

This year’s Harbin Ice and Snow World, the largest ice and snow theme park in the world, will cover an area of 600,000 square meters, with the use of more than 200,000 cubic meters of ice and snow.

Combining light, shadow, colors and rhythms to give visitors a unique experience, the park will have 21 groups of artificial ice and snow landscapes and four theme castles.

For the first time, the landmark in the park will adopt a twin towers design to replace its single building structure. Meanwhile, the park will use inflatable film and spray composite ice to build a ring-shaped ice and snow restaurant, making the snow and ice landscapes more functional.

In addition, the park will launch more than 20 entertainment activities, such as ice dragon boats, ice bicycles, snowmobiles, snowfield speedboats and cycle races on ice.

This year’s Sun Island Snow Sculpture Expo will feature two huge snow sculpture sets representing the famous paintings -- Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Morning In the Forest.