Skaters Paradise: Gold Coast’s famous roller skating rink from the late 1970s to 2000
It’s been 25 years since the Gold Coast’s famous roller skating rink closed forever. We look back at the amazing times at Skaters Paradise. SEE THE PICTURES
History
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Gold Coasters have always loved their skating.
From ice to roller, we’ve had fun on the rinks for more than a century.
Earlier this year we waved goodbye to Iceland Gold Coast, the city’s last public ice-skating rink, which opened in 1996.
It also marks 25 years since the Gold Coast farewelled its last classic roller-skating rink – Skaters Paradise.
The Southport rink was an institution for more than two decades but its doors closed at the dawn of the 21st century.
It’s long gone now, but a small, dedicated group of fans still celebrate its memory on social media.
More than 600 people follow the Skaters Paradise Memories page on Facebook, with images of yesterday and stories of the past shared.
In 2022, user Jamie Hinton went as far as to create a CGI replica of the interior of the venue as it appeared in the mid-1990s, down to the accurate Addams Family pinball machine.
These modern fans celebrate skating a century after it came to the Coast, with the first rinks 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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 operating 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.
Skaters Paradise, which closed in 2000, was the last rink to go, with its building converted to serve the auto industry.
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