Mc Cormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink - Operations - Ice Rink

Ice Rink

McCormick Tribune Ice Rink is generally open for skating afternoons and evenings seven days a week, with longer hours on weekends. However, it is occasionally closed for private events. Skating is free and skate rental is available. Except for its first year, the rink has been scheduled to be open from mid-November until mid-March, weather permitting. For the 2009–10 winter season, the rink is scheduled to be open from November 20, 2009 to March 14, 2010, with abbreviated holiday schedules on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Skating is accompanied by loudspeaker music, which is mostly seasonal music during the holidays.

Rink attendance is heavier on the weekends and other times when school is not in session. Romantic holidays such as Christmas Eve and Valentine's Day are also quite crowded. The ice rink is a popular people watching location during the winter months; many view events at the McCormick Tribune Plaza from AT&T Plaza, above and to the east. The ice skating rink has become so popular that when the weather was too warm for the rink's opening in November 2005, the story became international news. The book 1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die suggests a visit to McCormick Tribune Plaza during the skating season, and describes Millennium Park as a renowned attraction.

There are days when themed skating is encouraged. Santa attire was encouraged on Saturday, December 13, 2008, and zombie attire was encouraged the next day, as part of an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for number of zombies on ice. The rink also serves as a host to the annual Chicago Winter Dance Festival; during the festival there is a month of free skating instruction and demonstration at the rink, and there is free dance instructions behind the glass doors of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage.