ROLLING BACK TO ’70s DISCO
Enthusiasm from the public for the sold-out Galactic Roller Disco event surprised even its creator
What: Galactic Roller Disco featuring Koosh, Bendy, Jetane and DJ Trever When: Saturday, 9 p.m. Where: Archie Browning Sports Centre, 1151 Esquimalt Rd. Tickets: Sold out
Planning for this weekend’s Galactic Roller Disco event — a return to the roller-rink theatrics that were a big part of teenage life in the 1970s — got underway quietly in November.
Producer Guy Segal, who moved to Victoria from Nanaimo in May, knew immediately he had the right idea. But he could never have envisioned how popular his inaugural Archie Browning Sports Centre event would become once news of it went public.
Thinking that raising awareness about his unique event would be a slow build, Segal started with a Facebook event page. News spread quickly, however, and by mid-February the event had sold out — to the tune of more than 350 tickets. For much of the past two weeks, the wall on the event page has featured nothing but posts from hopefuls desperately looking to purchase tickets.
“Everybody I talked to said Victoria was always last-minute,” Segal said. “But this was really crazy. Without any details, people were like, ‘Let’s do it.’ It just hit that sweet spot very deep in our collective memories.”
Segal said much of the feedback he has received thus far has been from people who rollerskated decades ago, at venues such as Oak Bay Recreation Centre. “I got a call from a guy who said, ‘I used to be on the skate patrol at Archie Browning 35 years ago, this is amazing!’ ” Segal said. “This is why I am doing this.”
Four local DJs (Koosh, Bendy, Jetane and DJ Trever) will spin funk, disco and house music at the five-hour event, “which is a big part of it,” Segal said. He will have a disco ball, of course — “We’re going to try and give it that ’70s glam feel” — but his focus is making this a quality music event, not simply one that plays non-stop KC and the Sunshine Band songs.
“I’m not doing it for nostalgic purposes only. There is quite an active group of musicians in Victoria who are still creating new disco [music] in Victoria. There is quite a scene here in Victoria. It has quite a following.”
Rollerskating rinks were popular around Greater Victoria into the mid-’80s, but fizzled out when the activity lost its grip on teenage attention spans. Inline hockeystyle skating, as opposed to the traditional four-wheel “quad” skates, grew in popularity as a means of exercise in the 1990s, effectively killing any possibility of a roller disco comeback.
Roller discos were effectively non-existent until roughly a decade ago, when one-off roller disco nights began popping up at rec centres, mostly for their retro value (even Xanadu, the Olivia Newton-John rollerskating movie from 1980, became a Broadway show in 2007). Around the same time, roller derby — which became a popular contact sport in the 1940s — enjoyed a similar resurgence.
Perhaps the visibility of roller derby in Victoria, where 70 skaters participate in the decade-old Victoria Roller Derby organization, Eves of Destruction, helped play a part in the success of Galactic Roller Disco. Esther Beauregard, the head of media for the Eves of Destruction, would love to think that is the case.
Even though Galactic Roller Disco and the Eves are not affiliated, the more people rollerskating the better, Beauregard said. She will be at Saturday’s event, along with other skaters in her league, and expects to have a blast. “The Eves would love to see more people skating recreationally.”
Segal is taking the rollerskating portion of the event seriously. He has acquired (from the legendary and now-defunct Stardust rink in Surrey) more than 100 pairs of vintage quad skates that he is making available for rent. It was a “challenge,” he said, but he knew an event without rental skates simply would not do.
“I definitely didn’t want the rollerskating to be a gimmick,” he said. “We will have a dancefloor and a bar. It’s a bit of a combination of things — part music and rollerskating. But the bigger part of the arena will definitely be skating.”
Segal has brought to life a bygone era and activity. And fans have already been asking him if there will be another instalment.
“If I live through this one, I will think about doing another.”