You're probably tired of the snow by now, but take this one weekend to revel in it, as the Buffalo Powder Keg Winter Festival gets going downtown today along Seneca Street, near One HSBC Center.

Organizers were out Friday preparing for the first winter blast coordinated by Roaming

Buffaloes, a Western New York outdoors club.

World's largest ice maze. Check.

Snow tubing on the Skyway's Seneca Street off-ramp. Check.

Music. Games. Food. Check, check and check.

"We can't wait to bring people down here and show them what a great festival this will be,"

said Jeff Empric, festival co-chairman with Newell Nussbaumer.

The free, public festival, which includes a wide range of activities, will run from 8 a.m.

to midnight today and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Most of the activities — which include a broomball tournament, a soup and chili

cook-off, kite flying, snow volleyball, a stuffed hot pepper contest and a beer tent with live

music — will be held along Seneca, between Washington and Pearl streets.

Seneca Street between Pearl and Washington

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Horse-drawn carriages also will cart people a half mile to Erie Basin Marina, where the

Labatt Blue Buffalo Pond Hockey tournament is being held.

For a complete list of event times and activities, check out powderkegfestival.com.

Festivalgoers can find parking on nearby streets, or in lots around the festival, but are

encouraged to take the Metro Rail and get off at the Seneca Street station.

Metro Rail will extend service by adding two trains to the schedule at the end of each day.

C. Douglas Hartmayer, spokesman for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, said the

last train for today's festival attendees will leave the Erie Canal Harbor Station at 12:40

a.m. Sunday. On Sunday evening, the last outbound train will leave at 6:40 p.m.

The festival hype began to build Friday with a coronation for Buffalo, which now holds the

world record for the largest ice maze, measuring 12,855.68 square feet.

So says Guinness World Records.

A representative from Guinness was in town to measure the maze and issued a proclamation

Friday morning to Empric and Nussbaumer on the plaza of One HSBC Center, where the ice maze

was built for this weekend's festival.

"Congratulations," said Amanda Mochan, a Guinness World Records adjudications manager, "and

welcome to the Guinness World Records family."

Construction of the maze began Monday and was completed Thursday, Empric said.

It breaks the former record set in 2005, when the Pontiac Ice Maze was constructed during a

Toronto festival using 1,940 blocks of ice and measuring 8,280 square feet.

It also was done at a fraction of the cost.

When organizers of the Buffalo festival decided to go for the record, they found out the

Toronto maze cost more than $300,000.

But Buffalo was able to pull off the feat thanks to donations and volunteers.

"That's Buffalo," Empric said.

The ice company Arctic Glacier, which has a local office in Cheektowaga, donated the 2,200,

300-pound blocks of ice.

Local businesses and foundations chipped in with $20,000 to truck the ice blocks to One

HSBC Center.

Dean Sutton Architects designed the maze, while about 50 volunteers spent the past week in

snow, freezing rain and melting temperatures building it.

"What are we going to do next year?" Nussbaumer wondered.