U.S. Bank Stadium's Winter Runs by the Day of the Week. Tuesdays and Thursdays Are the Open Nights.

From the first of December to the end of January, U.S. Bank Stadium keeps a schedule you can predict by weekday. Winter Warm-Up runs on Tuesday and Thursday nights, when the concourses open for inline skating and indoor running. Every Vikings home game with a set December date is on a Sunday, and the stadium's pregame tours run on the Saturdays before them.

If you live a few blocks from the stadium in Downtown East, that split is the whole winter plan. The building puts a warm, flat indoor loop in reach on weeknights. Weekends are when the ramps fill, the tailgate lots open early and the light rail platform gets busy. If you know which days fall on which side, you can use the first and plan around the second.

Fifteen weeknights on the concourse

The stadium calls the program Winter Warm-Up. This season has 15 sessions, starting Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2026 and ending Thursday, Jan. 28, 2027. Each runs from 5 to 9 p.m. and is open to all ages.

The December sessions are Dec. 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17 and 22. January picks up on Jan. 5 and runs every Tuesday and Thursday through Jan. 28. KROC's 2026 rundown lists Dec. 24, Dec. 29 and Dec. 31 as off nights. That leaves a two-week holiday gap between the Dec. 22 session and the Jan. 5 return. The stadium also says some dates may be unavailable because of its own calendar.

The two activities use different levels of the building, and each ticket covers one of them:

• Skating, main concourse. Open inline skating and roller skating run from 5 to 8 p.m. Speed skating takes over from 8 to 9 p.m.
• Running, upper concourse. Running is open the full 5 to 9 p.m. window. The pedestrian ramp at Section 325 is available for incline training.

Tickets are sold online only, and the stadium won't refund a ticket bought for the wrong concourse. KROC lists the price at $14.73 per person per visit. Everyone age 3 and older needs a ticket.

What to bring and what stays home

The rules are stricter than at a rink, and most of them are about the skating concourse. The stadium's posted rules for skaters read:

No earbuds, speakers, headphones, or music allowed to be played while skating. Cell phone use such as texting or taking photos/videos is prohibited while skating.

There are no skate rentals, so you need your own inline skates or roller skates and your own safety gear, including a helmet. Everyone on the skating concourse has to have skates on, so street shoes aren't allowed there. Other wheeled footwear and rollerskis aren't allowed either. Food and drinks stay off the course. Skaters pass on the left and call out when they do, and nobody stands or stops on the inside line. Trick skating and weaving between skaters aren't allowed.

Runners need proper footwear. Strollers aren't allowed on either concourse, which matters if you were hoping to push a toddler around the upper level. The restrooms skaters use are near Section 103, and the water fountains are near Section 101. The stadium is fully cashless.

Getting in from the neighborhood side

Winter Warm-Up doesn't use the big plaza gates. You enter through the skyway from the Factory Motor Parts Parking Garage at 740 S. Fourth St. Once your ticket is scanned, leaving ends your night, because the stadium doesn't allow re-entry for this event. If you're carrying skates and pads, expect a bag search and standard security.

For anyone already in a skyway-connected building nearby, that entry point means a weeknight workout can start and end indoors. Riders coming by train can use U.S. Bank Stadium Station, which is on both the Blue and Green lines, according to Metro Transit.

The other side of the calendar

Between now and the holidays, the stadium's busy days come in clusters, and almost all of them fall Friday through Sunday.

The busiest stretch is Thanksgiving weekend. The Prep Bowl fills Friday and Saturday mornings, and the Falcons come in for a noon kickoff that Sunday. That's three straight days of crowds, and the first Winter Warm-Up night follows on Tuesday. The Vikings also have two more home games on the 2026 schedule: Washington in Week 16 and Chicago in Week 18. Dates and kickoff times for both are listed as TBD. The stadium notes that tour dates for those weeks depend on the NFL's flexible scheduling too.

The Ultimate Touchdown Tour is the stadium's pregame tour. It runs on select dates just before Vikings home games. Visitors see the locker room being set for game day, broadcast spaces being prepared, and a private bar inside the stadium. For a neighbor with visiting family over the holidays, it's a way into the building without buying game tickets.

Reading a Sunday kickoff from your front door

Kickoff time tells you when the blocks around the stadium start to change, because tailgating hours are set by it. Tailgating at Vikings games is only allowed in designated lots and ramps. For weekend games it opens five hours before kickoff, and it ends three hours after the game or at midnight, whichever comes first. Applied to this season's December home dates:

1. Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 29, noon kickoff. Tailgating can start at 7 a.m., so the morning is busy.
2. Panthers, Sunday, Dec. 6, 3:25 p.m. kickoff. Lots can open at 10:25 a.m., and the crowd stays into the evening.
3. Lions, Sunday, Dec. 20, 7:20 p.m. kickoff. Tailgating can begin at 2:20 p.m. With the three-hours-after rule, activity can run until the midnight cap.

According to the Vikings' tailgating page, passes are sold only for the full season. The team allows supervised charcoal or propane grills and prohibits open fires, glass containers and overnight parking.

Parking costs change on event days. The City of Minneapolis lists event rates of $14 to $50 at the Mill Quarter and Riverfront ramps, $15 to $50 at Jerry Haaf Memorial, and $9 to $16 at the 11th Street Underground. The city's rate page says rates are subject to change. If a weekend errand needs the car, check the city's road closures map before heading out. The city updates it for current projects and events.

Game days also have a couple of changes this season. In a Sept. 8 announcement, the Vikings said OpenGate touchless screening is now at every entry. The optional Vikings Express Pass biometric program uses seven touchless lanes at five gates. Clear-bag limits are still in effect. Bags for Vikings games can be no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches, or a one-gallon clear plastic bag. A small clutch is also allowed, and backpacks are not. The high school games use the same size limit but don't require clear bags.

What follows the last session

Tuesday and Thursday nights from 5 to 9 stay open through the final Winter Warm-Up session on Thursday, Jan. 28. After that, the next dates the stadium has announced are Monster Jam on Feb. 20 and 21, 2027 and Zach Bryan on April 28, 2027.

Living a skyway walk from a stadium affects both your weeknights and your weekends, and it's something buyers ask about when they look at homes in Downtown East. If you own nearby and want to know how that location shows up in your home's value, Massad Real Estate can put together the numbers for you. Request a Free Home Valuation and we'll start there.