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OC Fair: Este año la feria de Costa Mesa incluye un palacio de hielo, un desfile de ganado por las calles, y mucho más.

  • Refugio Trinidad, left, and Chris Swarbrick work on an ice...

    Refugio Trinidad, left, and Chris Swarbrick work on an ice sculpture in the ice museum in preparation for the opening of the OC Fair.

  • The OC Fair will have its first authentic ice skating...

    The OC Fair will have its first authentic ice skating rink this year. It will be able to stay frozen in up to 90 degree temperatures.

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The “Ice Queen,” Dominique Colell, can be practically surgical with a chainsaw and a block of ice. But at this moment – eight days before opening – she was directing construction, not sculpting.

This year, visitors can slip into what Colell and her crew are building – an icebox showroom. There, they can walk among giant friezes set in walls of ice, sit on a frozen throne and marvel at an 11-foot-tall, 18-foot-wide ice castle and companion ice dragon.

They can do this, for free, for as long as they can stand the cold; the room can be set as low as 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Colell, 34, is the rare former Miss America contestant who has taken up ice sculpting as a full-time profession. She owns Images in Ice in Camarillo.

The chilly museum is only half of the fair’s new Fairenheit 32° section, which organizers call “a dose of winter in the middle of summer.” Colell’s corner of that world will include 90,000 pounds of perfectly translucent, Minnesota-made ice that she and her nine sculptors will work on in the Ice Museum – the OC Fair’s first since 2010

Around the corner from the museum sits another frigid 2015 attraction: the fair’s first authentic ice skating rink. (Previously, the fair offered so-called ice skating on a specially made form of slippery plastic.)

Open all day at $10 an hour, this year’s rink can hold as many as 150 skaters at a time and freeze about 3 inches of actual, nonplastic ice, even when outside temperatures top 90 degrees.

And starting at 9:30 p.m. daily, the place will transform into a chilly club – “After Dark Skate Party” – with a DJ and flashing LED lights. Admission is $15, including skates.

OC Fair basics

Dates: July 17-Aug. 16, Wednesday-Sunday.

Hours: Noon to midnight on Wednesday-Friday. 10 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday.

Admission: $12 for ages 13-59. $7 for seniors and for kids ages 6-12. Age 5 and under is free. Free admission for kids on Thursdays. $2 Fridays: From noon to 4 p.m. on Fridays, rides and games are $2, and some food vendors will sell samples for $2. Early bird weekends: Admission is $3 for all from 10 to 11 a.m. on weekends.

Parking: $10. Free off-site parking and shuttle service available Saturdays and Sundays from the Experian parking structure, 475 Anton Blvd, Costa Mesa

Info: ocfair.com

Metrolink ofrece trenes especiales para OC Fair

Metrolink y OCTA se ofrece el OC Fair Express para los que van a la Feria de OC. Los pasajeros a lo largo de las líneas de Metrolink en el Condado de Orange y el Inland Empire pueden transferirse de forma gratuita a la ida y vuelta en autobús especial al OC Feria desde el Anaheim Canyon, Santa Ana, Irvine, y las estaciones de Anaheim-ARTIC.