The LA Kings' outdoor ice rink at L.A. Live is getting a major glow-up this winter, expanding from a seasonal skating spot into a full-blown Holiday Village festival that opens November 27 and runs through January 3, 2027. The new festival will fill 21,000 square feet at L.A. Live's Peacock Place plaza with a European-style holiday market, a 30-foot illuminated light tunnel, Santa's Workshop, and more than 20 vendors surrounding the rink.
According to NBC Los Angeles, the festival is billed as the city's largest outdoor skating rink, with the Holiday Village wrapped around its outer edge offering seasonal food and drinks alongside its market stalls and holiday programming. The expansion marks a shift in strategy for the event's organizers: L.A. Live and the LA Kings have partnered with event discovery platform Bucket Listers to scale the rink up into a destination-style festival, a move detailed by L.A. Live. Bucket Listers, which operates local experience and ticketing platforms in more than 20 major U.S. cities, is producing this year's event.
A Longtime Tradition Gets a Bigger Footprint
The 2026-2027 season marks the 17th consecutive year that American Sports Entertainment Company has built and operated the outdoor rink in partnership with the LA Kings, per the same L.A. Live announcement. ASEC runs ice rinks nationwide and also manages the Kings' official training facility at the Toyota Sports Performance Center, underscoring just how entrenched this partnership has become in downtown L.A.'s holiday calendar.
The festival sits at L.A. Live's 40,000-square-foot Peacock Place plaza, formerly known as Xbox Plaza, at 800 W. Olympic Blvd., positioned directly between Crypto.com Arena and the Peacock Theater. The plaza's centerpiece remains L.A. Live's mega tree, which the report notes returns for this year's holiday offering. Per Bucket Listers, that tree stands 62 feet tall, wrapped in mountain pine garland, decorated with red, white, and silver ornaments, and lit by more than 124,000 LED lights.
Light Tunnels, Santa's Workshop, and a Sleigh Photo Op
Inside the Holiday Village, visitors will walk through the 30-foot Dream Wonderland Light Tunnel, visit Santa's Workshop for daily appearances by Santa Claus, pose inside a Santa's sleigh photo setup, and stop at seasonal craft stations, Bucket Listers' event listing notes. The holiday village model draws design inspiration from traditional European outdoor Christmas markets, giving the pop-up town its festive structures and market-stall feel.
Tickets go on sale October 14 exclusively through Bucket Listers, introducing advance online timed-entry reservations for skating, market admission, and bundled LA Kings game tickets. That marks a real departure from prior years, when general admission ice skating tickets were sold strictly on-site at the box office.
Sponsors and Game-Day Crossover
Coca-Cola holds the festival's presenting sponsorship, a deal brokered by AEG Global Partnerships, which also lined up Blue Shield of California, Iron Bow Technologies, Mammoth Mountain, Big Bear Mountain Resorts, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Burke Williams as corporate sponsors. AEG owns and operates L.A. Live and is a co-owner of the LA Kings franchise.
The Kings have historically tied the rink to their on-ice schedule, organizing outdoor fan fests on Peacock Place ahead of major home games at Crypto.com Arena, including their annual holiday matchup against the Anaheim Ducks, according to DTLA Weekly. The team schedules those activations during the winter holiday period specifically to maximize foot traffic through the plaza.
How It Stacks Up Against Pershing Square
L.A. Live's rink isn't the only game in town. Downtown Los Angeles also features an outdoor rink at Pershing Square, which covers 7,200 square feet and draws more than 54,000 skaters and 450,000 spectators each winter season, as reported by Discover Los Angeles. Pershing Square runs timed outdoor skating sessions throughout November, December, and January, giving holiday skaters two very different options within the same downtown core.
The festival's expansion also follows a nine-figure, multi-million-dollar renovation across the L.A. Live campus and adjacent Crypto.com Arena, which created a seamless connection between Peacock Place and the arena while adding new electronic LED marquees, according to a 2024 report by the Los Angeles Times. Those campus upgrades are meant to prepare L.A. Live for a string of upcoming high-profile events, including the 2027 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Regionals and the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
