Last year its management decided to add a seasonal attraction at a time when regular customers would be thinking more about the festive season than their gardens: a Christmas Ice Rink.

Looking for a complete solution, they turned to Stage Electrics, one of the country's leading entertainment technology suppliers. Stage Electrics has developed a full ice rink service in conjunction with Ice-World and, with branches across the UK, has highly skilled engineers with expertise in both temporary and installed electrical systems, sound, lighting, rigging - and ice.

John Burgess, account manager in the live events department for Stage Electrics, headed the Ware ice rink installation team, and explains the company's involvement: "We first worked here last year with Van Hage on an ice rink. Their idea was to expand on their very large and locally well-known Christmas events and their pre-Christmas decoration sale. They were looking at various ways of doing that and an ice rink was one of them. We were asked to put in a small rink, which was very successful. This year, to meet demand, we've put in a much larger rink of 600 square meters, 20m by 30m in size, which gives it a capacity of 200 skaters per session, and it's turned into a much bigger event altogether."

With a six-week operating period which extended into January, Van Hage used the time to add different themed events. "They've expanded the concept considerably beyond the pure skate experience," says Burgess. "They had 'Skating Cake with Father Christmas' before Christmas, for mothers with small toddlers who meet Father Christmas in the Skate Café and then go skating. They've added various other elements and events along those sort of lines to add even more fun and value to the skating experience."

Stage Electrics advised the Van Hage team on technical aspects ranging from power supply to drainage, while its engineers designed and built the temporary Skate Café, installed a temporary generator for the ice chillers, and rigged decorative lighting and a weatherproof sound system for background music and announcements.
Stage Electrics installed the base structure, rubber matting, benches, skates, ice rink, safety barrier and a resurfacing machine. Two elements were provided in conjunction with established partner suppliers - De Boers for the marquees and Aggreko for the generator. The Van Hage team dressed the public areas themselves and put together the skate exchange area.

An element that proved particularly popular in the 2008-9 season were the 'penguin' skate assistants, designed for small children to use. For the 2009-2010 season, with the larger rink, 15 skate assistants were provided, a tempting attraction for the rink's youngest users.

"On the continent," comments Burgess, "they simply use chairs but these are much more fun and the kids love them. This year the rink is surrounded by six marquees, which are laid out in a horseshoe shape so there's now a skate exchange area and a café and food area so that people can sit down and watch people skating whilst enjoying a cup of coffee and a snack. It also means the staff working in the skate exchange can keep an eye the rink to make sure everything's going well."

The larger rink has meant the addition of an Olympia 500 motorised resurface machine, a tractor-drawn resurfacer which scraps one layer of ice off and replaces it with fresh water.

Burgess comments: "This year one of the big changes that we can't control is the amount of snow that's fallen. That brings its own issues because the snow sits on top of the ice and you have to get rid of it as fast as possible before it freezes solid and makes the surface uneven. But with a resurfacing machine that's enabled them to keep a good surface of ice right the way through. And there's a plus point, in that the low temperatures this winter have reduced the load on the chillers, which means less generator fuel has been consumed."

The build took a total of seven days from the ground up and the de-rig approximately five days. The rink required three and a half days to build to a useable ice level.

So does the rink itself involve much in the way of ground preparation? John Burgess: "Obviously for the type of ice rink that we build, we need to have level ground, with no more than a difference of 20mm in level across the length of the rink area. With this system we effectively build a paddling pool, then flood it right the way up to the level of the pipes and freeze that in one continuous session over a period of 12 to 18 hours."

The sound and lighting systems are designed to be operated by non-technical staff and, to minimise power requirements, the lighting the lighting employs mostly LED (light emitting diode) light fittings which give a good level of brightness but draw a fraction of the power of conventional bulbs.

The systems are controlled from just two boxes, located in places that only staff can access. One controls the sound systems, both inside the marquees and around the ice rink, while the other controls all the lighting fixtures.
"We also take into account the other power requirements on site," adds Burgess. "Because they also have a considerable amount of catering equipment for hot drinks, toasting Paninis and so on, that equipment takes a substantial amount of power too. So that meant that everything had to be very carefully laid out and staff trained to know exactly what to switch on at what time, and not just to turn everything on all at once."

Stage Electrics' generator supplemented the existing on-site power supply and was also used to power another new addition - a circus carousel. "They've built a reputation for this now, concludes John Burgess, "a high quality seasonal and high value attraction that coincides with school holidays - just the thing for kids and adults alike to enjoy."