How to start a skating rink business

In our day to day work we interact most of the times with investors that are interested in building an ice skating rink or that want to enter the ice skating rink business. As an ice rink constructor with more than 25 years experience we have a resourceful insight regarding how to start a skating rink business. Plus, we possess our own ice rinks which we manage: every year in Berlin we operate our ice rink during the winter season and in Romania we have two permanent ice rinks that we manage all year round. The first step would be to decide which is your focus: do you want a mobile or a permanent ice rink, will you be more focused on ice hockey or figure skating, do you want it to be suitable for professional trainings and competitions or just for leisure, etc. In this article we will try to cover a general situation that fits most of the cases: a permanent ice rink for leisure.

These are often found in shopping malls or amusement & leisure parks, and are mainly focused on public skating, depending on the size. If you do not want to go for the size of an Olympic ice rink (1.800 sqm) we would advice you (if the budget also allows it) to invest in a size of around 1.000 sqm at least. This makes the ice rink activities range more flexible, it can also host hockey trainings for little ones, ice skating shows and other different events. Our first suggestion would be to be really organized and informed regarding what building an ice skating rink means, and the fact that you are reading this article is already a good step ahead.

Rushing makes you oversee potential obstacles and this is not a business that you can start over night or that can be finnished by tomorrow. Plus, the research before starting the project is extremely important: try to find out which other businesses of these kind are in your area, try to talk with different owners of ice rink businesses as well, find a suitable building if you do not want to build your own and make sure the building meets all the technical requirements. Ask as many questions as you can, especially the companies that will send you quotations (like us :) ), you can never have too much information.

Another important thing to ease the process of developing your ice skating rink business is to find the perfect partner company that actually builds the ice rink and that can offer you support when it comes to the business planning and sustainability. If the first steps mentioned before were done correctly, after the opening it is just a matter of marketing actions and brand awareness that make the difference. There is an unlimited amount of activities that can be done around an ice rink to attract customers and the beautiful thing about it is that it can be done in collaboration with the community and local business partners.

The subject is unfortunately a very complex one which can not be covered in 5 minutes or in just one blog post, but until the next one what we can do is invite you to check our permanent ice rinks and mobile ice rinks projects and then send us your personalized questions or inquiries.