Holiday on Ice to Groningen: the most famous ice show in the world in 7 keywords

Story

The ice show directed by Francisco Negrin A New Day tells the story of Aurora, a woman from a colorless and joyless world who meets young Adam on earth. He introduces her to the beautiful sides of our planet. Aurora embarks on an adventure, but mysterious forces try to bring her back to her own colorless world.

Numbers

The performance involves 74 people from 23 nationalities. Among them, 38 figure skaters, 27 technicians and 9 people for matters such as administration, marketing and catering. The traveling ice circus moves with seven trucks and one coach. By the way, several Holiday on Ice companies are on tour at the same time. The world premiere of the show recently took place in Germany No Limits. In total, more than 330 million people have attended in the past 80 years, spread across 620 cities in 80 countries on 5 continents.

Premiere

The very first performance of Holiday on Ice was on December 25, 1943 in Toledo, Ohio in the United States. The show, which was subsequently performed seven more times, was the brainchild of Emery Gilbert, owner of the local ice skating rink. Gilbert presented his idea of ​​a traveling show to theater agent Carl Snyder. Two librarians then came up with the name Holiday on Ice – after all, it was the Christmas holidays at the time. After several tours through America, the jump across the Atlantic Ocean followed in the 1950s.

World toppers

Many (former) world top figures in figure skating found employment at Holiday on Ice. Such as multiple Olympic and world champion Sonja Henie from Norway, who continued her sporting career as star of the show between 1953 and 1956. Friezin Sjoukje Dijkstra and Joan Haanappel from The Hague skated at Holiday on Ice from 1964 to 1972. The current cast also includes two Dutch talents: Florian Gostelie (30) from Amsterdam and Sophie Bijkerk (21) from Barendrecht.

Costumes

About 400 different costumes are designed for each show. Its production takes about four months. It is important that the skaters can change clothes very quickly. That is why almost all garments are fully equipped with zippers: the skates do not have to be taken off to change costumes. The players do not have to fear the cold, because the temperature in the hall fluctuates around (or usually slightly below) 19 degrees.

Ice floor

The ice floor is laid down and dismantled especially for the shows. It starts with a base of plastic foil, with a layer of polystyrene (a plastic) about 3 centimeters thick on top. This is followed by a floor of aluminum plates onto which a layer of water is sprayed. That water freezes thanks to portable cooling systems. On average, the ice thickness grows by one millimeter per hour; the entire process takes about 48 hours. For optical and light-technical reasons, the ice is colored with lime. The ice floor can be laid in different sizes, depending on the venue in which the game is played. The width is always 18 meters, the length varies between 32 and 42 meters.

LED tiles

Unlike pop concerts, for example, no standard LED screens are used in this production. The company Avex designed for A New Day a decor with 440 so-called LED tiles attached to moving arcs and spheres. This lighting equipment – ​​on, above and around the ice – is suitable for quick and safe assembly (and disassembly) for the tour. Connoisseurs call the technical performance behind the scenes comparable to the artistic performance before it. And according to reviewers, it is unprecedented: Holiday on Ice stands for ‘big, bigger, biggest’. And that has been the case for eight decades now.