This 120 metre, temporary ice rink in a historic, New Town location, is one of the big attractions of Edinburgh's Christmas.
The ice rink returns to the same George Street location from 22nd November 2024 to the 4th January 2025.
The George Street ice rink was introduced to the Edinburgh's Christmas festival in 2021 as an open air ice rink, modified in 2022.
Tickets (2024 prices)
Time slots are for 40 minutes at various times between 10am and 10pm, from 22nd November 2024 to the 4th January 2025. Book online via the Winter Festivals site.
Prices vary depending on whether it's a peak (e.g. Saturday evening) or off-peak time (e.g. weekday afternoon). Edinburgh residents with an EH postcode get a 20% discount.
There are special times for toddler and relaxed sessions.
Adult tickets: From £14.50: (£13.50 concession)
Child: from £12.50
Penguin skating aid: £5
Christmas Ice Rink Background
We'll bring a 2024 review of the George Street Ice Rink experience after it opens.
Here's what we thought in previous years:
Edinburgh's Christmas festival has had an ice rink in previous years, originally Winter Wonderland in East Princes Garden and then an "elliptical" rink that circled the Melville monument in St Andrew Square.
The ice rink moved from Princes Street garden to make way for an enlarged Christmas Market.
The new location at St Andrew Square lasted til 2018. In March 2019, due to the environmental impact and damage to the trees in the garden caused by the weight of the rink, stalls, and crowds, the business body representing owners of the garden, Essential Edinburgh, decided not to renew its contract with Edinburgh's Winter Festivals organisers Underbelly.
Edinburgh's Christmas Ice Rink 3.0
After an absence of two years, the third iteration of the Edinburgh's Christmas ice rink was established at the west end of George Street in 2021. More of a track down the middle of the street than a rectangular "rink", it was very different from the elliptical rink of St Andrew Square. But like the previous rinks it made use of the iconic New Town setting, and as it was in the open air, it was less of a Covid-19 risk.
Skating on the "Alpine" rink in 2021 was along a wavy, elevated track, with a double pedestrian bridge over the middle of the ice. Stalls and bars on a rink-side platform offered drinks and hot food for non-skaters to enjoy while watching the skaters travelling back and forth.
Where the Belgian, ice rink in 2021 had a pleasing, whimsical design, it was quite narrow and a little scary for nervous, out-of-control, inexperienced skaters.
In 2022, with pandemic fears easing, a covered version of a re-configured ice rink was introduced. As with the St Andrew Square elliptical rink, the "Lidl On Ice" rink was established in partnership with local business association Essential Edinburgh.
The ice rink that returned to the west end of George Street, between Charlotte Square and Castle Street between 26 November 2022 and 3rd January 2023, was dubbed "Liddl on Ice", after its sponsor, the German grocery chain.
New configuration
The temporary ice rink was in the same George Street location, but with a different, more traditional configuration.
The rink was also open at the sides but completely covered on top, offering protection from the elements, although perhaps not quite the same unimpeded views of the New Town setting that the previous year's ice rink offered.
The covered ice rink that was introduced in 2022 has a wider, rectangular configuration with fenced-off islands down the middle of the rink, around which people skate. This allows for safer uni-directional skating as opposed to the two-way skating track which beginners found disconcerting in 2021.
The 2022 rink measures 65m (213 ft) by 15m (49ft) and, is more akin to the elliptical ice rink of yesteryear, around the Melville Monument in St Andrew Square.
The islands in the middle encourage people to skate in a circle, in the same direction, and make it impossible to cut across the ice.
The wider, rectangular ice rink design moves the main viewing area from alongside each side of the rink (with the bridge over the top of it) to a seating area at the East side of the rink looking towards Charlotte Square.
There is also a brightly lit carousel beside the seating area. The skate and changing area is at the west end of the rink as before.
Edinburgh also has a longtime, purpose-built ice skating rink, Murrayfield Ice Arena.