The above title should probably read ‘the pros and pros‘ of having an ice rink at your event.

A number of public ice rinks appear mid November to late January at venues such as The National History Museum, Tower of London , Canary Wharf and even Westfield shopping centre! These fabulous rinks are created out of real ice and probably above even the largest corporate budget (as they’ll cost upwards of 100k to create!!) Here are a couple of interesting facts about these that you may not know, 10 points to those who do..

– These ice rinks are kept cold with a large refrigerated base – the exact opposite of underfloor heating!
– The ice rink’s base has to be painted white as ice is of course clear!

For those of you who (like us) love the idea of having one of these at your next event, but don’t have 100K burning a hole in your pocket, there is an incredibly good alternative to the above… a synthetic rink.

These are so much more affordable and surprisingly good to skate on. The cost starts at about 5k and the rink is made up of one metre square pieces that slot together ( a bit like a dancefloor). Amazingly the joins are not felt when skating and you can glide across them as if you were on real ice. The companies providing these rinks include plenty of skates in both children’s and adult sizes and even bring gazebos to change in, music to skate to and snow machines to add that little bit of extra fun. These really do give the ‘wow’ factor to an event!