This time of year, most people are looking toward the warm, sunny days of summer. The head of the St. Paul Winter Carnival is looking toward cold, dark days of next winter.

April 22, 2008 at 11:50PM

Chris Swarbrick of Richfield used a chainsaw to begin carving a dolphin sculpture at Rice Park as part of this year’s Winter Carnival. Planners are already hard at work on next year’s festivities. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

It might be spring officially, but winter is heavy on Kate Kelly's mind.

That's because planning the St. Paul Winter Carnival is a year-round task.

The president and CEO of the St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation, which puts on the carnival, is already lining up venues, negotiating contracts and writing up grant proposals for next year.

"I wish I had a dollar for every time people ask what we do this time of year," she said.

Looking back at 2008, it looks like the carnival will break even or make a small profit, Kelly said. Official numbers won't be available until an audit is completed in August. She noted some success in getting new donations from smaller companies.

"That's a huge accomplishment for a festival that has to rely on weather," she said.

Estimated attendance was 300,000.

But that's the past, and now drafts of budgets for 2009 are being put together. The carnival's budget runs about $1 million in years without ice palaces (such as next year), and it has to be approved by the foundation board in June.

Given the sluggish economy, organizers won't try to be overly ambitious in planning next year's event, she said.

Efforts to attract new volunteers are underway. At least 1,000 people are needed to pull off the event, and new people are always welcome.

Also welcome, Kelly says, are fresh ideas for Winter Carnival events. She said she welcomes suggestions.

"It's a community celebration," she said. "If people want to get involved, now's the time of year to do it."

Carnival buttons will be designed in the next several months and ready for production in early September.

Kelly said she'd like to see more outdoor sports events -- like the "back-to-basic" old days of the carnival.

"It's kind of natural for us to say get off the couch, get outside and enjoy where it is we live," she said.

A youth hockey tournament, likely to be held at the State Fairgrounds, is a possibility in 2009, she said.

Next year's carnival runs from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 (the Grand Day Parade will be on Jan. 24, and the Torchlight Parade will be on the 31st, Kelly said). A team is already focused on putting together an extra-special event in 2011, the carnival's 125th year.

Kelly expects her spring and summer to be filled with phone calls, meetings and number crunching. It will take another major event, the State Fair, to buy her a few weeks of downtime.

Chris Havens • 651-298-1542