What began as a ripple a few years ago has swelled into a wave! Across the nation the skating public is trading in the traditional blades of ice skating, for the light up wheels of roller skating. Perhaps it's the nostalgia, maybe it's the challenge, but it's most definitely because it's fun.
In 2012 we started to get a few requests for roller skating events, and added an inventory of inline skates to our products. However the demand didn't grow as we thought it might and for a while we dropped this option from our services. Turned out it wasn't the activity that clients weren't interested in, it was the blades. Inline skating didn't carry the same level of enthusiasm as quad skating evoked.
It was that retro vibe featuring the traditional boots and quad wheels that the public was craving, along with the demand for anything retro, that sparked a new direction for Chill Entertainment.
Other companies were also offering mobile roller skating packages, however when it comes to portable floors for roller skating, we found just as many challenges as there are for ice skating, if not more. Feedback from clients who previously booked with other companies, indicated that many of the sport tiles on the market were too squishy for roller skating. When we initially thought about adding roller skating we used our synthetic panels without the glide spray, however the polymer too, offers challenges. If the surface gets wet, it can become slippery. This meant that we needed to modify our panels to address this issue.
We worked very hard over the past few years to modify our inventory to accommodate roller events, and continue to develop our product and services to deliver on our guests' expectations. Today, almost 25% of all of our events are roller skating and we expect this ratio to increase as we continue to make design modifications.
Mayble it's the retro style, the disco lighting, or excitement of roller derby and memories of Studio54, but adding roller skating events has helped to enhance our Chill brand, and offered a shot of excitement into the company as we embark on our 10th season.