Santa Monica’s plans to have the largest outdoor ice skating rink in Southern California this holiday season have been scrapped.
Organizers for “Skate with the Stars,” said they had to cancel the event because they couldn’t find a title sponsor to pay for the rink, which would have been located in a parking lot at Santa Monica Boulevard and Second Street. The rink would have featured the world’s first-ever fiber optics display embedded in the ice.
With the self-imposed deadline of Oct. 4 already passed, the group behind the project realized they couldn’t raise the second half of the funding they needed. By the time the idea was formed and Santa Monica was the chosen site, it was too late to find a suitable sponsor on such short notice, said Todd Fraser, producer at “Skate with the Stars.”
“We had all of the elements in place but we didn’t have the corporate sponsor,” Fraser said, adding most companies are currently setting their budgets for next year. “We’re confident that we’ve paved the way for next year.
“It was a difficult decision but we want it to be everything we know it can be,” he added. “So we’ll take a step backwards and dust ourselves off and be absolutely 100 percent committed next year.” The idea was to bring world champion figure skaters Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner to the Santa Monica rink each Sunday and give the sense of a Rockefeller Center-style holiday to downtown. The rink would have been open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown with City Hall, said officials had been talking to the organizers since last year, trying to get them to commit to Santa Monica.
“It was late in the game certainly,” she said. “Like any new project, it takes time to do. They wanted to have a sound project in place and we think we will be in better shape for next year to have a topnotch program.”
“Skate with the Stars” is planned to be launched throughout the country, with Santa Monica being the first city. Fraser said Santa Monica was chosen not only because its downtown has a lot of foot traffic, but also because there is nothing like it anywhere else.
“There is nothing on the westside that has a Christmas tradition,” Fraser said. “And I think because it’s an entertainment city, it would get the celebrities out there.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 9, 2003. Read the original PDF.