There was music, snow cones, and lots of sand at the 2025 City Sand Competition, the third iteration since the pandemic. Ten teams competed to see who could sculpt the best version of this year's theme, "Authentic Baltimore."
WATCH: Sand sculptors celebrate "Authentic Baltimore" in annual city competition
"We want, kind of, teams to explore and interpret Baltimore in any capacity they can to really show off what makes this city something that we absolutely love," said Kevin Miller, president of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation.
Each team had their own ideas about what makes Baltimore great—from the Baltimore peppermint lemon to the many trash wheels.
"I am heavily biased towards the trash wheels," Miller said. "I adore them. I love telling people that we have Captain, Professor, Gwenda, and Mister. And they're like, 'We have more than one?' And I was like, we have four; there might be a fifth in the pipeline."
Each team, representing in their own way what makes Baltimore the best.
"Baltimore's the greatest city, America's greatest," said Craig Huntley, leader of team Moffet Nickle. "Neighborhoods of the people bring all the people together—and bring the neighborhoods together, and we can make it even better than it is."
The winner of the coveted golden shovel? The Baltimore peppermint lemon and team Mosey.
"When we heard authentic Baltimore, we really wanted to pay homage to things invented in the city, things that make this city so special and so great, and the lemon stick was the perfect example of that," said the leader of team Mosey.
