What a municipality is really buying
A council is not really buying a surface. It is buying a well-used public amenity that residents enjoy, talk about and take pride in, and that reflects well on the town. Because it is public, the experience is judged in public: a good rink becomes a source of local pride, and a disappointing one becomes a complaint residents make loudly and repeatedly.
Why that outcome depends on the surface
Attendance at a public rink is roughly 20% passers-by, 30% repeat visits and 50% word of mouth, so about 80% of it depends on people enjoying themselves. A surface that tires and frustrates skaters undoes that, and an empty or unhappy rink draws no one, because residents are drawn toward a rink full of people having fun. The rink's other income, dasher-board advertising, is weatherproof, steady income a town can rely on year over year. It depends on the same thing: advertisers want to be seen at a rink the town likes, not one it complains about.
What regular synthetic ice costs a town
On a poor surface, skaters plough and tire, do not come back and do not recommend it, and the 80% of attendance built on enjoyment quietly collapses. The advertising follows: an advertiser attached to a rink with a bad local reputation opts out after the first season, and replacing them is nearly impossible. Worst of all, the failure is public. A town that invested in a rink residents do not enjoy wears that visibly, and the council hears about it.
Why Glice quality delivers it
Glice is engineered so skaters glide rather than plough, which is what turns a rink into a full, happy, talked-about amenity, the kind a town is proud of and advertisers want to be seen at. The performance behind that is independently measured by Fraunhofer, which matters for a public body that has to justify the choice. The result is the outcome a council actually wanted: a rink that is used, enjoyed and defensible.
How to write a tender that compares like with like
Public bodies buy by tender, and a tender is only as good as its criteria. Ask for a price and a thickness, and you will get the cheapest surface, because that is all you measured, and the cheapest surface is exactly the one that empties the rink. A fair tender specifies the things that actually decide the outcome: friction, indentation and abrasion, each with its test conditions and an independent source; the joint system and the standard the panels are machined to; a maintenance and training programme; and local support. Written that way, the tender rewards the surface that will fill the rink rather than the one that looks cheapest on paper, and it protects the council when the decision is questioned.
The premium, and why it repays itself
Glice costs about 20 to 30% more than regular synthetic ice, and each cost of going without the quality stands on its own. The sharpening bill alone can justify it, provided skates stay on the ice or rubber matting because hard flooring or asphalt ruins an edge fast. So can the attendance and word of mouth a poor surface loses. So can the advertising a disliked rink cannot keep. Any single one of these is usually enough to repay the premium within a season, and if plans change, used Glice panels hold a high resale value.
An honest concession
There is no independent municipal benchmark that puts a precise attendance number on the difference, so a council should run these arguments against its own catchment and expectations rather than a headline figure. And the surface is necessary, not sufficient: a great rink with no maintenance routine, untrained staff or no marketing will still struggle, which is why the Why synthetic ice rinks fail page matters as much as this one.
In short
A municipality is buying public pride and attendance, most of which depends on people enjoying the rink. Regular synthetic ice rarely delivers that enjoyment, and the failure is public. Glice's independently measured quality protects the attendance, the advertising and the town's reputation, and any single one of those, sharpening, attendance or advertising, usually repays the premium within a season. The blade-cost case assumes skates stay on the ice or rubber matting; hard flooring or asphalt ruins an edge fast.
Reviewed by Viktor Meier, Co-Founder and CEO, Glice AG. Last reviewed August 2026.
Glice — Swiss-engineered synthetic ice. No water, no energy — proven across 3,000+ rinks in 100+ countries.