By Saskia Yacoubi-Sluis – Contributor

The Bishop’s community gathered this past weekend to celebrate Winterfest; an annual tradition and seasonal highlight organized by the Students Representative Council (SRC) and attracting an increasingly growing crowd since 2012.

 This year’s festival ran from Feb. 6 to 8 and brought together a crowd just short of 1300 attendees! While the dedicated students at Bishop’s encompass much of this number, there are many guests who made their ways from all around Canada to celebrate this festival with their Bishop’s friends. The festival included an Après-Ski themed Gait night, a rail jam, a winter carnival and an outdoor concert to bring the weekend to a spirited end.

The Thursday Gait night provided a lively start to the weekend, kicking off Winterfest with a Pong Palooza tournament and a live performance by The Sunburns. My City DJs from Montreal kept the night going until it’s early hours. At 4 p.m. on Saturday the outdoor carnival began in the quad. With everyone decked out in their brightest and most creative, weather-friendly outfits, the quad was exploding with vibrant colours! 

Preparations started two weeks prior to install a slope for the rail jam, which ensued on Saturday afternoon. Students showed off their most impressive tricks to win prizes – amongst these rewards was included the ultimate prize of a brand new pair of AirPod Pros! 

For those who were not participating in the Rail Jam – unfortunately not everybody can be a pro skier or snowboarder – a new addition to the carnival this year was a mechanical snowboard. This was a fan favourite, and notably a highlight for Reagan Russell, Director of Events for the SRC and a primary organizer of Winterfest. “The Mechanical snowboard was definitely my favourite addition this year. I tried many times – and failed many times – but it was so much fun,” says Reagan. 

Reagan moreover speaks on one of her favourite parts of the planning process: finding the headliners; a selection which is then approved by the grad formal committee. With the outdoor concert being a key element of the festival for many students, this choice is a significant one to make. Different Font, a DJ duo originally from Boston, Massachusetts, headlined this year’s festival and kept the energy going as students danced and sang in the quad until closing hour. 

A beaver tail truck kept students fueled throughout the night and as a pleasant and very on-theme wintery surprise, it even started snowing throughout the last two hours of the festival!

 Taylor Patch-Mccoy, a first-year student at Bishop’s, reflects on this moment, describing how “the falling snow felt so magical with the lights, music and people all around”. 

“We tried to have a more involved Winterfest planning committee this year, including more students from the student body, Gait managers and the BU snow committee”, explains Reagan on the SRC’s efforts to strengthen student inclusivity throughout the planning process. This sense of community emerged over the course of the festival as students from all around the country socialized throughout the night. 

Milan Rice, a student from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, reflects on her weekend: “Winterfest was super fun! Everyone followed the theme and dressed up in such fun ski outfits. I’ve never been before but I would totally recommend it!” 

Let this recommendation be your sign to attend once again, or for the first time, next year. See you all in February 2026!