BIDDEFORD — WinterFest is just over a month away, and this year, the events will more closely resemble what its creators first intended the three-day celebration to be.

“It’s turning back to more of what WinterFest originally started as, more of a community-based event,” said event coordinator and chairman John Maxson on Tuesday.

Unlike last year and the year before that, there will be no Big Air show this year. Previously, the show was held at the New Life Church on Alfred Street and featured professional and amateur snowboarders and skiers competing in various events.

“What we’ve done is created some other events to go along with the family sledding,” said Mayor Alan Casavant Tuesday.

One event new to this year’s celebration will be the Cardboard Sled Derby. For this event, teams of at least two people will be making sleds out of nothing but cardboard, paint, glue and tape, and from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 7, the teams will race their creations for prizes.

“We wanted to do something that’s going to involve the community,” said Maxson of the new event.

Other events slated for the celebration include the Human Dog Sled Race, a snowball throwing competition, tug of war, sledding on Adams Street, snowshoeing, mini-golf, pony rides and ice skating at the West Brook ice rink.

This year marks the city’s fourth WinterFest. Casavant said he came up with the idea for the celebration several years ago. It was inspired by events he had attended, such as the Can-Am International Sled Dog Race in Fort Kent and the Québec Winter Carnival.

“I thought it would be really cool to have a winter festival here, to have something in our downtown, so we built on that (idea),” said Casavant. “We came up with the idea of creating a sledding park in City Square, along with various booths of food, trinkets and assorted games.”

From that point, he said, the New Life Church got involved and provided the city with “a good nucleus of workers” for the celebration.

Currently, WinterFest relies on volunteers to keep things running smoothly. Contractors, for example, provide their machinery and labor for free, said Casavant, and help to set everything up a day or two in advance.

There isn’t a lot of work that goes into planning the event, he said. But with front yards still green and driveways still bare a week after Christmas, there is one worry for WinterFest’s organizers this year: a lack of snow.

“We have to pull in about 3,000 yards of snow,” said Maxson. “It’s not like bringing in a dump truck full of snow. It’s about 100 dump trucks.”

The snow, he said, is collected from various locations in the city, such as the airport and store parking lots. So, as long as the city sees some snow before February, everything should move forward as planned.

“We still have a little over a month to go,” he said. “All it takes is a couple of good storms. So right now, I’m not worried about it.”

Maxson estimated that about 2,000 people in total will attend the celebration over its three-day course. Saturday, he said, will likely be the busiest day, for which he estimated there will be between 500 and 1,000 revelers in attendance.

WinterFest will be held from Feb. 6-8. A tentative schedule of events and a list of sponsors and event partners can be found on www.heartofbiddeford.org.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535 or [email protected].