News
Winter is Coming! Ice Rink Returns to Life Science Centre
The countdown to Christmas has begun as Skating@Life returns to Newcastle this weekend.
Life Science Centre’s annual open-air ice rink will open for business this weekend (Saturday 8 November) in Times Square. Tens-of-thousands of visitors are expected to visit for a whirl around the ice during the rink’s 15 week run, before it closes on 22 February 2015.
The ice rink at Life has been a major part of Newcastle’s festive calendar for 14 years now, and the team behind the rink have gathered some very interesting stats over the years….
- 11,000 gallons of water (277 domestic baths full), will be used, which converts to 50 metric tonnes of ice.
- During the build of the rink, the glycol chiller system goes 12 degrees below zero to freeze each thin layer of water which is applied every two hours.
- It takes 1,000 man hours to build the rink up layer by layer and there are at least 10 layers of ice
- Staff will find approximately 200 single gloves left by skaters every year and around 100 odd socks in the skating boots!
- Over 18 thousand mugs of hot chocolate will be sold (no doubt to warm the hands and feet of those gloveless and sockless skaters!)
