Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium has been transformed into a snowy winter wonderland for tourists, stirring anger among environmentalists over the venue's water use, state media said yesterday.

Ten artificial snow machines have turned the showcase Olympic venue into a park that will host the "Happy Snow and Ice Season" carnival for two months from Saturday.

The snow festival boasts a 5,130-square-metre carpet of man-made snow up to one metre thick covering the stadium floor and sitting beneath a towering fake mountain.

For a 180-yuan (26-dollar) entrance fee, visitors will be able to ice skate, ski, snowboard and enjoy dog sled races.

Up to 16,000 cubic metres of water are needed to make the snow, a prospect that has environmentalists howling at a time that Beijing is suffering from severe water shortages worsened by an ongoing drought, the Global Times said.

"Man-made snow or ice is a waste of water and energy, especially in urban areas," the paper cited Liu Shuang, a Greenpeace activist, as saying.

"It does not send a positive message when China is dealing with climate and energy issues."

The snow festival is one of the first events at the 526-million-dollar Bird's Nest since the stadium was placed under government management in August in an effort to stem financial losses. Annual operating costs for the stadium total 70 million yuan ($10 million), or about 200,000 yuan a day, earlier reports said.

Only a handful of events have taken place at the stadium since the Olympics, including an Italian football match, a concert by Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan, and an eight-day run of Zhang Yimou's staging of the opera "Turandot".