The Sapporo Snow Festival is an annual holiday festival held in Sapporo, Japan every February. The first snow festival was held in 1950, and Odori Park, Susukino, and Tsudome serve as the main sites of the festival. The JSDF built the first massive snow sculptures in 1955, for which the festival became famous. In December 2012, the Susukino Ice Festival was the site of the kidnapping of yakuza patriarch Taizo Kitakata by Taiga Saejima and Shigeki Baba.