PIER bosses are encouraging slippery customers to visit the attraction this winter after it undergoes an icy makeover.

Hastings Pier will have an ice rink installed as part of its Winter Wonderland event.

The rink will be open to visitors between November 21 to January 1, alongside festive rides and plenty of food and drink.

A spokesman for Hastings Pier said the move would be a UK first with the attraction becoming “the only pier in the UK to have a real ice rink”.

Tickets are now on sale online via the Ticket Source website.

Organisers reassured customers that “Covid 19 gold standard” will be in operation and if the event is forced to cancel due to tightened coronavirus restrictions then all tickets will be fully refunded.

The rink will mark a significant change from the pier’s summer appearance.

In July, after pubs and venues were allowed to reopen following the height of the UK lockdown, Hastings Pier was made into a 600-seater, socially distanced beer garden.

Drinkers enjoyed performances from musicians who were stationed on a stage set up on the roof terrace.

Just weeks before it opened, it was reported that the “UK’s biggest socially distanced beer garden” had opened in Walthamstow, London.

The Truman’s Social Club had 35,000sqft when combining the garden and venue and opened on July 4. But, with Hastings Pier measuring a reported 910ft by 45ft, meaning it has 40,950sq ft of space available, the pier’s beer garden had a viable claim to being the UK’s largest.

However, as not all of the available space was used for the beer garden, it could not be said for sure the site was the UK’s largest.

Hastings Pier was built in 1872 and became a popular music venue in the 1960s.

It was badly damaged by storms in 1990 and closed completely to visitors in 2008.

Two years later the pier was almost destroyed by a fire but, with residents and visitors missing the attraction, Hastings Pier Charity led a rebuilding project and it reopened in 2016.

It has since been sold by the charity to a private buyer.