The Land of Your Winter Playground
The fun in Cleveland heats up this winter with a new LGBTQ+ community hub, a season long WinterLand festival and exciting outdoor adventures, including hikes to frozen waterfalls in a national park, speeding down toboggan chutes and ice skating in a lakefront stadium.
Studio West 117 Heats Up
The first phase of the Studio West 117 development, a first‐of‐its kind neighborhood created for and by the LGBTQ+ community, opened this fall. The Fieldhouse includes a gymnasium with courts for pickleball, dodgeball, basketball and volleyball, an outdoor rock‐climbing wall, a community garden and three restaurant and bars: Muze Gastropub, Trellis Rooftop and Eat Me! Pizza. This winter, visitors can experience fitness classes, cooking demonstrations and the popular Sunday Drag Brunch. With weekly drag entertainment, trivia nights, dance parties and shopping at LGBTQ+ owned businesses at the complex, Studio West 117 offers fun throughout the winter.
Winter Festivals
The season-long WinterLand celebration brings lights, ice skating, music performances, fire pits and more to Cleveland’s Public Square in the heart of Downtown. The light displays, programming and special events run through February to brighten up the season with daily fun. On February 25, Brite Winter turns the riverfront Flats neighborhood into a colorful and musical winter wonderland. The event marries fire, art displays, food, music and games to embrace the fun of the cold winter. Visitors can play a game of skeeball, warm up by a bonfire and enjoy the dynamic light installations and ice sculptures as bands spanning a diverse set of genres perform during the daylong, free festival.
Make Fun of the Cold Weather
With Lake Erie in its front yard, a national park in its backyard and 18 park reservations surrounding the city, visitors can make the most of outdoor winter activities. The toboggan chutes in Cleveland Metroparks’ Mill Stream Run Reservation take riders down the state’s tallest (700-foot) and fastest ice chutes, reaching speeds of 50 mph. After an icy plunge, stop at the Chalet and warm up with hot chocolate and snacks. In the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park, visitors can hike the Brandywine Gorge Trail to Brandywine Falls. In the winter, the 65-foot frozen waterfall provides stunning views for hikers. Plus, the lakefront FirstEnergy Stadium will host public skate times at a special rink created for the Face Off on the Lake this winter. For the first time, skaters can take to the ice in the open air, waterfront stadium.