Big Skate is at Pondside from 5 December to 3 January, with adults at £14, children at £10 and a Quiet Skate session daily. Updated November 2026.

Watford’s ice rink, Big Skate, is at Pondside from Saturday 5 December 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027, closed on Christmas Day. Tickets are on sale at £14 for adults, £10 for children and £45 for a family of four, or £12, £8 and £38 before 23 November. That is 29 days of skating, covering the whole school holiday and the first weekend of the new year.

Book at the Big Skate box office. The dates come from Watford Borough Council’s own events site, which lists Big Skate at Pondside with the council itself as organiser and events@watford.gov.uk as the contact.

Updated 5 November: tickets are on sale. The council has announced prices, and the box office calendar shows every session. Our story has the announcement and what the Mayor said.

Updated 28 October: the council’s listing now runs the rink to Sunday 3 January (it said 1 January before), says all ticket proceeds go to four named good causes, mentions Quiet Skate sessions and links a booking page.

Earlier, 11 October: a report to the council’s Cabinet on 5 October gives the rink’s size, operator, cost and charity arrangement.

Prices

Every booking is one hour with 45 minutes on the ice, and includes skate hire.

  • Adult (13 or over): £14, or £12 before 23 November.
  • Child (4 to 12): £10, or £8 before 23 November.
  • Family of four (two adults, two children): £45, or £38 before 23 November.
  • Skate aid: £3 a session, for children under 10 and under 110cm. Numbers are limited.
  • Carer: free, with proof of carer status within 24 hours of booking.
  • Spectator: free, in the marquee’s viewing area, where space is limited.

The minimum age on the ice is 4, and children under 12 must be accompanied by a responsible person aged 16 or over. Refunds are not given, but a booking can be changed through the box office’s “Self Serve” option at least 48 hours beforehand. Walk-in tickets are sold on the day only if a session has not reached capacity.

Session times

From the booking calendar, read on 5 November. Each is the first session’s start to the last session’s finish, with sessions on the hour. The box office warns that some sessions may be removed for private hire.

  • Saturday 5 December: launch event at noon (that slot is marked private), then public sessions 1pm to 8pm.
  • Mondays 7 and 14 December: 3pm to 7pm.
  • Tuesdays to Thursdays, 8 to 10 and 15 to 17 December: 3pm to 6pm.
  • Fridays 11 and 18 December: 3pm to 8pm.
  • Saturdays 12, 19 and 26 December: noon to 8pm.
  • Sundays 6, 13, 20 and 27 December: noon to 7pm.
  • 21 to 23 and 28 to 31 December: noon to 8pm.
  • Christmas Eve: noon to 7pm. Christmas Day: closed.
  • New Year’s Day and Saturday 2 January: noon to 7pm.
  • Sunday 3 January: noon to 5pm.

Quiet Skate sessions, for people with special educational needs and disabilities or anyone preferring a quieter, smaller session, run once a day: 3pm on weekdays from 7 to 18 December, 4pm on the opening Saturday and noon on every other day. General sessions have music and colour-changing lights, which the council says may not suit people with photosensitive conditions or light sensitivities.

What the council’s listing says

The full listing, read on 28 October, adds four things:

  • A Christmas tree in the middle of the ice, festive music, colour-changing lights and a refreshments stall for drinks and snacks.
  • Sponsorship from the Mace Foundation, which the council credits with making the rink’s return possible.
  • All proceeds from ticket sales go to four charities and good causes: Become (chosen by Mace), and New Hope, Pump House Raise the Roof and the Watford Community Fund (chosen by the council).
  • Quiet Skate sessions, for anyone who wants the ice with less noise and fewer people.

What the Cabinet papers add

A report to Cabinet on 5 October 2026 fills in most of what the listing leaves out:

  • it is a covered real-ice rink of about 12m by 20m, with chillers, boot and changing facilities, a kiosk and a marquee
  • Ice Park Ltd supplies and runs it as a fully managed service, under a contract of about £173,803 that runs to 15 January 2027
  • the report names The Parade as the preferred site, which matches the Pondside listing
  • the rink is funded by sponsorship from the Mace Foundation and Community Infrastructure Levy, and half of ticket sales go to local charities, with the other half to the Mace Foundation’s partnership with the charity Become (the newer listing puts it as all proceeds going to the four causes, Become among them)
  • it was a commitment in the Mayor’s 2026 election campaign

How the contract was awarded, and why there was no tender, is in our story on the ice rink contract.

Where Pondside actually is

The Parade in Watford town centre in December, with Monmouth House
The Parade, Watford. The Pondside event space at the top of The Parade is where the ice rink goes. Photo: Monmouth House, The Parade, Watford, December 2025 by No Swan So Fine (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia

Pondside is the council’s public event space by the pond at the top of The Parade, at the north end of Watford town centre. It is the same site that hosts the Christmas lights switch-on two weeks earlier, on 21 November.

It is not a permanent facility and it is not the Harlequin. If you are meeting someone, “the pond on The Parade” is the landmark to give.

Getting there

The Parade runs down from the top of the town centre, so all the usual town centre approaches work. Watford High Street and Watford Junction are both mainline stations serving the town centre, and Watford Underground on the Metropolitan line sits over by Cassiobury Park.

The box office names the Avenue car park as the closest, with Gade too, and Sutton and Church a few minutes further away. The rink runs straight through the busiest retail fortnight of the year, so the town centre car parks will be under pressure most afternoons. Tariffs and locations are on our Watford parking page, and anything dug up or diverted on your route is on the roadworks and travel page.

The rest of the festive line-up

Sold out, or want a rink open sooner? Our guide to ice rinks near Watford compares eight, with prices.

More things to do across the borough are on our things to do in Watford page.

Sources