Drake’s publicity stunt brings ice, blowtorches and headaches to Toronto

TORONTO – A carpark in Toronto was transformed into a monolithic ice palace on April 20 at the behest of Canadian rapper Drake. By April 22 morning, fire crews were hosing it down.

Since the installation was erected to promote Drake’s upcoming album Iceman, droves of fans, passers-by, social media personalities, news broadcasters and curious residents flocked to the site.

But the chaos, which included people climbing the almost 8m-tall structure and others using blowtorches to melt it, also attracted the Toronto Fire Services because of safety concerns.

“Large numbers of individuals have gathered to attempt to melt the ice using flammable liquids and open flames in an uncontrolled environment, which results in an immediate threat to life,” the city’s fire chief Jim Jessop said in a statement.

Live television footage on April 22 morning showed a pressurised stream of water being sprayed from a fire truck’s crane onto the depleted pile of ice blocks.

The crowds came after Drake, 39, suggested in an Instagram post that the installation – completed on April 20 night – held the release date for Iceman.

Some hacked at the ice blocks with pickaxes, hammers and other sharp tools. The police tried to contain the people at the carpark, which is a five-minute walk from a major hospital.

Drake made an appearance during the construction.

Mayor Olivia Chow told reporters on April 22 morning that she supported the fire chief’s decision to melt down the ice prism. She also stressed that Drake, who is from Toronto, was “a big supporter of our city” who had generated excitement.

“It’s going to be a great summer,” she said.

This was the second disruption in Toronto in less than a week connected to Drake’s album roll-out.

Residents in a north Toronto neighbourhood were rattled by a loud explosion in a park that sent a plume of smoke far enough into the sky to be seen from high-rises kilometres away.

Some long-time residents were jittery because they remembered the community’s propane plant explosion in 2008, which prompted the evacuation of thousands of people.

After Drake hinted at his involvement in the explosion, the city of Toronto confirmed the boom was a controlled pyrotechnic blast for a Drake music video shoot.

To build the ice structure, a convoy of transport trucks drove roughly 453,600kg of ice from a farming town in rural Ontario to the carpark in Toronto, where a fleet of 20 forklifts awaited.

Moving that much ice was a logistical whirlwind, said Ms Heidi Bayley, president of Iceculture Inc, the producer of the ice blocks. She counts this as one of the company’s largest projects in its nearly four decades in business.

“The goal was to maximise the scale,” said Mr Michael Gingerich, owner of Mawg Design, the experiential design studio in Toronto that led the project. “We wanted it to be big and great.”

Forklifts were fitted with special equipment to handle the blocks, each bigger than a banker’s box and weighing 136kg apiece, Mr Gingerich said.

The structure was finished on April 20 around 3pm.

The police were called to the carpark around 11pm, Toronto police spokesperson Ashley Visser said in an e-mail.

A streamer known as Kishka found a bag in the ice structure that revealed the album release date: May 15. Drake appeared to confirm the timetable in an Instagram post. NYTIMES