Events & Festivals

Come March, Nederland in Colorado hosts one of the quirkiest festivals in the US, if not the world. Frozen Dead Guy Days features frozen festivities with dozens of live bands and such offbeat icy escapades as polar plunging in fancy dress costume and ice turkey bowling.

Unfortunately, due to the impact of the Coronavirus COVID-19, the 2020 Frozen Dead Guys Festival has been cancelled. It is not known (2 February 2021) whether or when the 2021 Festival will take place.

Bredo Morstol and the Origins of Frozen Dead Guy Days

Marking its 19th incarnation in 2020, Frozen Dead Guy Days promises to be something of an ice-cool spectacle. Almost certainly unique in their origins, the frosty festivities pay homage to the suspendedly animated Bredo Morstol, who resides in a shed on dry ice above the town. Morstol’s after-life and times, or rather the very fact of his continuing cryogenically prolonged existence, is the basis for this frost fest. His story weaves together psychics, a journey from Norway to California and Colorado, deportation, eviction, local by-law infringements, new legal precedents – the “grandfather clause”, and a 30-year-so-far wait for medical science to provide successful reanimation.

Throngs of the adventurous, the curious, or the just plain macabre regularly turn up to enjoy the atmosphere, live music, local crafts, festive food and drink, and to remember the man who, albeit unwittingly, started all this deep-frozen daftness, Grandpa Bredo.

Frozen Dead Guy Days Schedule

Kicking off with Grandpa’s Blue Ball, featuring three live bands and the coronation of the Ice Queen & Grandpa Costume Contest winners, highlights include: live music showcases in three giant heated tents – ReAnimate Yourself, Not Yet Dead in Ned, Bacon, Bourbon & Brews; screenings of Grandpa’s Still in the Tuff Shed – a documentary detailing the full history of Bredo Morstol and his after-death adventures; a Frozen Dead Guy lookalike competition and costumed polar plunging for those brave or barking mad enough to go for a dip at this time of year in Colorado – which usually means breaking the ice first.

As if that weren’t enough, the discerning ice-lover can also enjoy the slow-mo parade of hearses, coffin racing, frozen t-shirt contests, icy turkey bowling, frozen salmon tossing, human foosball – something akin to giant table football –, brain freeze contests, frozen fix-a-flat competitions, ice and snow sculpting, frozen dead poet slam, the Newly Dead Game, a silent disco, and work by many local artists and crafters, as well as a range of festival-appropriate food and beverage options.

If you think that there’s nothing new under the sun, be a little bolder, take a step into the Colorado unknown and check out what’s under the ice. Head over to Ned, as locals affectionately call their town, and embrace the cold, the crazy and the downright weird. Celebrate the end of winter, the coming of spring and above all, the not-quite-dead-yet infamy of Grandpa Bredo Morstol, in what his grandson, Trygve Bauge, the man responsible for starting this bizarre snowball rolling, calls Cryonics’ first Mardi Gras.

Planning a trip to Colorado, try these Colorado Holidays: Top Quirky Spots.

When is Frozen Dead Guy Days 2020

March 13-15, 2020

Where is Frozen Dead Guy Days

Guercio Park Town Square parking lot, and 1st Street in Nederland, Colorado, USA. Coordinates: 39°57′42″N 105°30′39″W

Accommodation in Colorado

If you are looking for accommodation for the festival or elsewhere in Colorado, please fill in the form below.

Frozen Dead Guys not your scene, try the Great American Beer Festival in Denver instead.

More information on Frozen Dead Guy Days

For further details, click here. Cover photo, c. Emma Pion-Berlin. Article dedicated to Laura J Snook.