Mamma Carmela’s Winter Wonderland at Glenelg was a new event that was held from 28 June until 27 July 2014 positioned on the foreshore of Adelaide’s premier seaside suburb.
This joint venture by Holdfast Bay Council and the Jetty Road Mainstreet Management Committee aimed to boost winter trade and create some of that summer buzz throughout winter.
The Winter Wonderland Festival featured a 150sqm covered ice-skating rink with clear walls offering views of Glenelg beach.
Five 1.5 hour public sessions were run daily on the rink, with much of Adelaide getting their skates on; all sessions selling out in the first weekend.
A total of 16,050 tickets were sold with 88 percent of visitors to the ice rink being located outside of the Holdfast bay area.
The cool, beachside ice rink took three days to ice over using 10,000 litres of water frozen using 4km of specially-laid refrigeration piping.
The rink was provided and managed by Stars on Ice who have engineered and operated more than 200 ice installations around the world.
By using real ice and not synthetic, at the end of the event the water was recycled to water Holdfast Bay’s parks and gardens.
Schools, community and corporate groups, recreational skaters and traders strongly supported the event.
Glenelg taking advantage of the season installed Adelaide’s first outdoor ice-skating rink providing a much needed revenue boost to local traders.
Winter Wonderland is planned to be back bigger and better at Glenelg in 2015.
