2013 Plymouth Ice Festival: Downtown Skating Rink Opens at 5 p.m.

Visitors to the Plymouth Ice Festival this weekend can strap on a pair of skates and glide around Kellogg Park, surrounded by ice sculptures.

This year, the Plymouth Ice Festival placed a skating rink in the park facing Main Street, which opens at 5 p.m. today.

Rather than using real ice and hoping Mother Nature cooperates, however, the rink is made of a synthetic material that simulates ice. The surface, placed in interlocking tiles on a level wood foundation

"It's like a white cutting board, basically," Anthony Bro of Peabody, MA-based Artificial Ice Events said. The surface is then sprayed with a solution that decreases resistance to make skates glide as if it were actual ice, he said. 

Bro said the company often books similar rink setups at colleges and other community events.

Skate rentals are provided at the rink free of charge to skaters.