Skaters Paradise Southport: Gold Coast’s long love affair with roller skating

Skaters Paradise was one of the Gold Coast’s most popular attractions in the 1970s and 1980s, where locals would go for a spin and listen to funky tunes. This is its story.

THE Gold Coast had a love affair with roller skating in the latter half of the 20th century as locals strapped their wheels on and hit the rink.

That nostalgic feeling came back to the Coast this week with a husband and wife duo opening a skating equipment hire business.

It’s been a century since the activity hit it big in the region – Roller skating came to the Gold Coast in the early 20th century when rinks were built in Southport and Burleigh Heads.

The original Southport rink was built near the Broadwater pier, while the Burleigh rink was created on the suburb’s famous beachfront.

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Skaters Paradise, Southport, Gold Coast in the 1980s

Another, Jazzland, began operating in the early 1930s at a Coolangatta dance hall on Griffith St and was once attributed with helping get the southern Gold Coast through the tough years of the Great Depression.

It moved to the Capitol Theatre and before a permanent open-air rink was built at Kirra Point in 1935 called Coolawai.

This rink later moved to Dutton St near Marine Pde until, in 1951 when Rollerland opened at Coolangatta’s Goodwin Park.

At its peak, up to 400 skaters a day were hitting the rink, paying a fee of just 50 cents.

Roller skating became popular again after World War II and local Keith Dudman opened the Miami Rollerdrome on Christine Ave in the mid-1950s.

It was the home of the city’s first skating club, formed in 1962.

The Burleigh foreshore rink was destroyed during a cyclone that hit the Coast in 1954.

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Burleigh resident Kirsten Murphy with David Morrison roller skating at Coolangatta's Rollerland. March 26, 1988.

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By the early-1960s the former Southport rink had long been demolished to make way for development and was replaced by a new rink on Nerang St near the modern-day site of Australia Fair, as well as a combined roller/ice-skating rink on Bundall’s Ashmore Rd.

Interest in roller skating hit its peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s during the roller disco craze, which led to the opening of Southport’s Skaters Paradise on Bay St.

Skaters Paradise became a popular community hub from the 1970s until the late 1990s for the Gold Coast’s youth with many who grew up in the city during those decades having fond memories of their time there.

Skaters Paradise was a popular destination.

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Even into the late 1990s Skaters Paradise still had its early 80s brown carpet decor and its DJ booth still reliably pumped out the top hits from the 1960s to the present day.

During that time it was hosting family skating evenings on Sunday nights.

The band Indecent Obsession played at the rink in December 1989 to celebrate the first birthday of Stage Seventeen, an under-18s disco/nightclub which operated there.

Roller disco faded by the mid-1980s and the city’s rinks fell into disuse and were gradually redeveloped, including Coolangatta’s Rollerland, which was converted to a carpark by Gold Coast City Council.

Property prices were blamed for the downfall of the rollerskating rinks.

“It’s the high cost of commercial land which beats you these days. It’s very sad to see it go but roller rinks just can’t compete anymore in main commercial districts,” Ray Otto, a former New Zealand skating champion who operated Rollerland for 33 years, told the Bulletin in 2000.

“It’d cost you $2 million to build a skating rink today and then you’d have to get a big regular attendance to pay for it.”

Skaters Paradise, which closed in 2000, was the last rink to go.

It’s building still stands but was converted to serve the auto industry.