Bathurst Regional Council hoped the ice skating rink would be the centrepiece of the Illuminate Bathurst Winter Festival – and so it has proved.

Almost 7000 tickets had been sold by day three of the festival.

“It has proved to be extremely popular,” mayor Gary Rush said.

“A lot of people are going on separate occasions because they’re having so much fun.”

And it is not just Bathurstians who have been enjoying the ice rink.

“We’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from all over the Central West,” Cr Rush said.

Among the visitors yesterday were Laura Tandy and her family, who had travelled around two hours from their home in Gooloogong, between Cowra and Forbes, to take part.

She brought along her husband Chris and their children William, 3, and Bryce, 6, for an ice skate.

“We heard about it on Facebook and were looking for school holiday activities and to do something we hadn’t done before,” Mrs Tandy said.  

 “It’s such a cheap way to entertain the kids for a couple of hours.”

Stars on Ice, the contractor providing the rink, general manager Peter Lynch said the ice rink has been hugely popular.

Mr Lynch said they usually run around 20 ice rinks across the country each year, varying between three days and eight weeks long, but none have been so successful.

“This is the single most successful event we’ve ever done,” he said.

Mr Lynch praised Bathurst Regional Council for the “tremendous amount of planning” that went into the event.

“The council have absolutely hit the mark with what the people want,” he said.

Ice rink manager Tim Herbert said people had come from far and wide to skate and were invited to  list their home town on the registration forms.

He said he was impressed that people from as far away as Glasgow, in Scotland, and Argentina had come to Bathurst to skate.

While the ice skating sessions may have sold out, Bathurstians have been encouraged to head into the CBD to view the nightly Illuminate Bathurst light show.

The show will commence at dusk each night until Sunday at Bathurst Court House, the old TAFE building, in Ribbon Gang and Pedrottas lanes, as well as on the War Memorial Carillon.