Roc Holiday Village Opens on Black Friday, Then Goes Dark Until December 4
This year Rochester's downtown holiday season starts twice. On Friday, Nov. 27, Roc Holiday Village opens at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park for its eighth season. It has never opened on Black Friday before. It runs three days and then closes from Monday, Nov. 30 through Thursday, Dec. 3. It reopens on Friday, Dec. 4, the start of the weekend when the Liberty Pole lights up and a family parade walks over to the rink.
That gap matters for planning. The city's other events now sit on either side of it. Thanksgiving weekend fills up with a Thursday morning run, a Saturday of small-business shopping, and the first Sunday of Holidays at the Market. The first weekend of December has the Park Avenue Holiday Open House, the Genesee Keg Tree Lighting, and the Liberty Pole. Treat them as two separate weekends and the season gets much easier to plan.
The Village scheduled crews to start building its deck at MLK Park on Oct. 19, five and a half weeks before opening day.
The Village is open for 16 days, and they aren't in a row. Here is the 2026 schedule from the Roc Holiday Village season announcement:
| Stretch | Days open | Village hours |
|---|---|---|
| Opening weekend | Fri. Nov. 27 to Sun. Nov. 29 | 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fri. and Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun. |
| Closed | Mon. Nov. 30 to Thu. Dec. 3 | None |
| Liberty Pole weekend | Fri. Dec. 4 to Sun. Dec. 6 | 4 to 11 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun. |
| Two full weeks | Dec. 9 to 13 and Dec. 16 to 20 | 4 to 10 p.m. Wed. and Thu., 4 to 11 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun. |
The opening weekend has the most daytime hours of the season. Friday, Nov. 27 is the only Friday when the gates open at 11 a.m. instead of 4 p.m. Free skating with free rentals, presented by Wegmans, starts even earlier that weekend: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. On a regular weekday the rink opens at 4 p.m. If you want long skating hours without a school-night limit, Thanksgiving weekend has them.
The new items for 2026 are a paid Snowball Smash game near the rink, a Shopping Village that grows to 27 vendors each week, and more food on the main deck: pizza, donuts, chai, soup and grilled cheese, and a holiday cookie bar. The Village drew more than 200,000 visitors in 2025, its biggest year so far. With that many people coming, the extra opening weekend spreads the crowds across more days.
The weekend starts the day before the Village opens, at two events a short walk apart. The Feast Thanksgiving Day Run starts at Blue Cross Arena, 100 Exchange Blvd. The kids' half-mile goes off at 8:30 a.m., the 5-miler at 9 a.m., and the 2-mile run/walk at 9:20 a.m. There's also a virtual option, and packet pickup is Nov. 24 and 25. The race's 2026 donation page names Special Touch Bakery as the beneficiary.
Across the Wedge, the Wedge Waddle starts at Abundance Co-Op, 571 South Ave., and runs from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 26. It's a free 3-mile walk, run, or waddle around the South Wedge. Participants are asked to bring new socks for St. Joe's House of Hospitality. The South Wedge Planning Committee notes that socks are among the least-donated but most-needed clothing items at homeless shelters. The Waddle's homepage shows Nov. 26, 2026 in its countdown, but its day-of instructions further down the page still say "Thursday, November 27th." Thursday this year is Nov. 26, which matches the planning committee's listing.
Both events are done by early afternoon, well before Thanksgiving dinner. The next morning, MLK Park opens at 11 a.m.
The Village has its own Shopping Village on Saturday, Nov. 28. Small Business Saturday also has stops in at least three other parts of the city, and all three are free to walk into:
The library and Second Look are both on South Avenue, so you can walk between them. Saturday night brings the Village back into the plan. The ticketed Hill Holiday Wreath Decorating runs from 8:30 to 10 p.m. on Nov. 28 at $69 plus tax, and a Holiday Floral Class is scheduled the same day.
On Sunday, Nov. 29, the city's two largest holiday markets overlap for the first time this season. Holidays at the Market opens at the Rochester Public Market from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., with fresh-cut trees and wreaths, specialty foods, handmade goods, and free horse-drawn carriage rides. Santa is there from 9 a.m. to noon. The city calls the series a Rochester holiday tradition for more than a quarter-century.
The Village opens at 11 a.m. that day, so the two overlap for three hours. In the Village's heated Gingerbread House, the season's first cultural celebration is Kwanzaa, presented by the Kwanzaa Coalition. The Village closes at 6 p.m. Sunday, and the rink at 7 p.m. Then MLK Park is quiet until Friday.
From Monday, Nov. 30 through Wednesday, Dec. 2, nothing major is scheduled downtown. If you need something for those days, The Strong National Museum of Play opened Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep: Shear Genius! on Oct. 3. The interactive exhibit has themed play spaces and problem-solving activities and runs through Jan. 10, 2027.
Things pick up again on Thursday, Dec. 3, the last night the Village is closed. The Park Avenue Merchants Association holds its Park Avenue Holiday Open House from 5 to 8 p.m. The Santa tent is on the Park Avenue Green at Park and Barrington, and the evening includes a tree and menorah lighting, Santa with live reindeer, merchant offers, and a holiday train if the weather allows.
Friday, Dec. 4 has two events. The Village reopens at 4 p.m. with a Game Night hosted by Game Night Rochester. The city's 2026 permitted events calendar lists the Keg Tree Lighting at Genesee Brewery the same day. The brewery posts its own start time, so check it before you go. That same city calendar still shows older Village and Public Market dates. For those, go by the organizers' pages.
Saturday, Dec. 5 is the big night. According to the City of Rochester's Liberty Pole page, it runs like this:
The city says free skate rentals that night will be limited and asks families with skates to bring them. Trivia Night runs in the Village that evening. On Sunday, Dec. 6, Holidays at the Market returns from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the Gingerbread House hosts Three Kings Day, presented by the Puerto Rican Festival.
The Market's only weeknight event is Thursday, Dec. 10, from 6 to 9 p.m. It's held with the Market District Business Association and includes specials at Market District businesses, Santa from 6 to 8 p.m., and carriage rides.
A few Village events need tickets, and some go on sale before the Village opens. Igloo Inn reservations were set to go on sale Oct. 13, and Cozy Winter Igloos on Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. The 90-minute igloo bookings cost $222 plus gratuity and taxes, and they sold out in one day in 2025.
The next sale is Monday, Nov. 2 at 10 a.m. on rocholidayvillage.com, for the season's special events:
The rest is free: skating, Santa's Workshop with Wegmans cookies, kids' crafts in the Gingerbread House, the Mini Maker Markets on Dec. 9 and 16, and the Silent Discos on the rink from 8 to 10 p.m. on Dec. 10 and 17. In the Village's announcement, Mayor Evans encouraged everyone "to come downtown Thanksgiving weekend and beyond." After the Village closes on Dec. 20, free skating continues at the rink for an extended stretch.
Our team keeps track of these weekends because we live here too, and the calendar changes every year. If family visiting for Thanksgiving gets you thinking about your own next move, in the city or out in the suburbs, The Amy Petrone Team is happy to talk it through over cocoa at the rink. Work With Us.
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