Williams Bay's Winter Evenings Now Need a Reservation, Starting Friday

Both of Yerkes Observatory's night-sky tours, Exploring the Night Sky and the 24-inch Reflector program, are sold out for 2026. Starting tomorrow, Friday, November 20, the Great Refractor dome opens in a new way, to 50 people at a time. Down the hill on the same day, PIER 290 sets up heated igloos on the Geneva Lake shore for groups of six or fewer.

Neither one takes walk-ins in any reliable way. Each sells a fixed block of time with a cap on how many people get in, and both run through the coldest weeks of the year. For anyone who lives in Williams Bay, a winter evening out now starts with booking the time.

The Only Way Inside Yerkes This Winter

Frostlights is the first holiday program in Yerkes' 130-year history. It runs from November 20, 2026 through January 2, 2027.

Frostlights also matters because nothing else is open inside the building this season. Interior access at Yerkes is by advance ticket only, and tickets come out on a rolling basis, usually two months ahead. The two night-sky programs are sold out for the year, and the Space & Spaces tour calendar shows no events in November or December 2026. If you want to stand under the 40-inch lens before New Year's, Frostlights is how you get in.

The Frostlights ticketing calendar has these dates open:

• November: 20, 21 and 29
• December: 3 to 6, 10 to 13, 17 to 23, and 26 to 30
• January: 2, the last night of the run

Most of those dates fall Thursday through Sunday, then the run goes nightly through most of the two weeks around Christmas. Weekend dates in early December are the ones most likely to sell out first. Yerkes caps each slot at 50 guests and says tickets may not be available at the door.

What a 90-Minute Slot Holds

A ticket covers a 90-minute window. Within it, the 20-minute light and sound show in the dome starts twice, at a quarter past and a quarter to the hour. Yerkes gives an example: with a 4 p.m. ticket you can catch the show at 4:15 or 4:45 and stay in the building until 5:30. The dome windows are blacked out, so the show looks the same in every slot, and every guest gets a seat in the dome.

The rest of the time is spent around the building:

• The central floor has holiday shopping, treats, winter activities for families, and a custom-painted photo backdrop by artist Neal Aspinall.
• A beer and wine bar is decorated with vintage winter memorabilia. Non-alcoholic drinks are available too, and you must be 21 with valid ID to buy alcohol.
• The Ann M. Drake Family Library has a lit tribute to Edwin Frost, who directed Yerkes from 1905 to 1932.

Yerkes' own artists and astronomers built the show with an international design team. Lighting and visual design firm Lightswitch created the overall experience, Upstaging built the custom light components, and film-score composers wrote original music for the show.

Some practical details shape the evening. The dome is unheated, so keep your coat on. The dome is up 26 stairs. The main floor has an accessible entrance and a lift, and Yerkes asks visitors to contact them at least 72 hours ahead for help with lift access. On-site parking is limited, so Yerkes asks guests to arrive no more than 15 minutes before their slot. Tickets can't be refunded. Yerkes may be able to move you to another slot if you email at least 72 hours ahead and there's room for your whole group.

The Same Night, on the Shore

PIER 290's lakeside igloos open on the same Friday and stay up through March 2027. That means they last about three months longer than Frostlights. Each igloo is enclosed, has its own propane heater, sits right on the shoreline and holds up to six people. You can order from the full lunch, dinner or weekend brunch menu.

Put side by side, the two reservations look like this:

Igloo reservations run from noon to 8:15 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. on Sunday. If you book the 10 a.m. Saturday or Sunday slot, PIER 290 adds a free bottle of prosecco and carafes of juice for mimosas. The restaurant is open year-round and closed Mondays, and dinner service starts at 4 p.m.

Williams Bay already had an igloo. Daddy Maxwell's Arctic Circle Diner on Elkhorn Road is the igloo-shaped building most residents have driven past for years. The igloos on the shore are new this winter.

Stacking an Evening in the Bay

Both bookings start on the same day and sit less than a mile apart along Geneva Street, so a resident can pair them into one evening. Here is one way that could work on a Friday:

1. Book Frostlights first. It has fewer dates and 50 seats per slot, so it's the harder ticket to get. The Yerkes example of a 4 p.m. ticket keeps you in the building until 5:30.
2. Book an igloo dinner second. Pick a slot after your Frostlights window ends. Friday igloo reservations run as late as 8:15 p.m.
3. Match the opening night. PIER 290 has a fish fry on November 20 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., the same day both programs open. Another is set for December 11.
4. Look at the night of the week. PIER 290 runs half-off bottles of wine from 4 to 9 p.m. on Thursdays, and Frostlights has Thursday dates on December 3, 10 and 17.

Harpoon Willies on East Geneva Street is another option for the evening. It serves lunch and dinner seven days a week, has live music on Thursdays from 8 to 11 p.m., and runs a Friday fish fry. Daddy Maxwell's serves dinner only on Fridays, from 4 to 7 p.m.

The Parts of Winter That Don't Need a Ticket

Not everything in the Bay this winter needs a booking. Several things are free and open daily, and the rest of the village calendar sits around the two new reservations.

The Yerkes grounds. The arboretum and outdoor trails are open daily from sunrise to sunset, free, with no ticket. If you're only visiting the grounds, Yerkes asks you to park in the overflow lot. A late-afternoon walk around the observatory costs nothing, any day of the week.

Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy. Kishwauketoe is open year-round from dawn to dusk with no entrance fee. Trails can be muddy or icy depending on the weather. Through December, the conservancy holds adult volunteer seed-cleaning sessions on select Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon at the Lions Field House. Training is provided, and you don't need any experience or equipment.

Barrett Memorial Library. The library has dates for every age through the holidays:

• Now: pickup for the adult take-home Thanksgiving centerpiece kit started November 16. Registration is required.
• November 25 and 26: the library closes at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25, and stays closed on Thanksgiving Day.
• December 7, 6 p.m.: Family Fun: LED Holiday Cards, for children of all ages, with registration required.
• December 23, 10:30 a.m.: a Holiday Dance Party for ages 1 to 6.

The Lions Field House. The village calendar lists Holiday Paint-N-Cocoa Night on Friday, December 4, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. That same weekend, Frostlights runs December 3 through 6, so families can plan a craft night and an observatory visit back to back.

The boat launch. The village's 2026 launch fee sheet says that from November through April, there are no piers or staff on weekdays, and weekend launching is at the user's own risk. On the water, the season has scaled back even as the dome and the shore open up for it.

Weekend mornings. The Cantina on Elkhorn Road is listed as open year-round, serves breakfast from 8 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, and opens a Bloody Mary bar at 8 a.m. That covers the morning after a Saturday night Frostlights slot.

If you have family coming for the holidays and want help planning a day around the village, or if you're considering a home within walking distance of the observatory and the shore, Shannon Blay and the Keefe + Blay team would be glad to share what we know. When you're ready, we can start with a free home valuation.