RollerCon 2024 Trip Report

We asked Ottawa skater Gloria Guns about her experience attending RollerCon 2024. Here’s her account of 4 days in Las Vegas trying everything the con has to offer.

My first year at RollerCon was a blast! RollerCon is a massive four-day gathering in Las Vegas of quad skaters from around the world. The annual convention features skate workshops taught by the world’s best skaters, roller derby scrimmages (including banked track and USARS rules derby), dance parties, skate vendors, skatepark tours and competitions, derby weddings, trail skating down the Las Vegas Strip, etc. Like Elvis once sang, I wished that there was more than the 24 hours in the day, so I could do more.

Here’s a recap of my initiation into the world of RollerCon, in case you’ve wondered about it’s like.

Wednesday

Las Vegas was hot. I have lived in deserts before, but the city was going through an unprecedented record-breaking heat wave with temperatures of up to 47 °C. Wednesday was primarily a set-up day, with many of the booths, tracks and skate features still being installed as volunteers checked in. I checked out the pool at the Plaza Hotel, where a mermaid pool party was being held, which was an excellent way to cool down.

The evening featured various events including a sunset roll out and a roller dance party, but I was interested in RollerCon’s tour of Las Vegas skateparks. Tonight’s featured spot was Freedom Skatepark. There was a brass band rehearsing in the park nearby, setting a lively soundtrack for our skate session, and the breathtaking landscape of palm trees and mountains on the horizon at sunset made me tear up - although now that I think of it, the tears were probably actually from all the blowing dust from the desert. The skatepark offered fun street features, a couple of mini- ramps and a big bowl that looked excitingly inviting…except for the poop that someone had managed to smear in the bowl, rendering it unfortunately un-skateable.

I had foolishly thought perhaps the sweltering heat would subside in the evening, but at 8PM it was still over 40°C. Despite the heat, there was a great turnout of friendly RollerCon skaters that I got to meet. A Mexican woman came by the skatepark selling Mexican popsicles from her cooler, which pretty much saved my life.

Thursday

First full today of the convention. Skaters were dressed in all sorts of costumes, scrimmage jerseys, lingerie and kink wear, tracksuits, or whatever because RollerCon is the kind of place where nobody gets singled out for being too weird.

I took an introductory workshop to banked track roller derby taught by Ringer, who impressively managed to teach us how to skate on the banked track, how to hit (including hitting people off the rails) and even scrimmage a little, all within the span of two hours. There are only a couple of places in the world that feature banked track roller derby, so this was a rare opportunity. I loved how thrillingly fast banked track skating was. Like shredding at the skatepark, but with people actively trying to knock you down.

I was rostered to play a scrimmage for Team Korea and Friends in the afternoon. It was an all- levels game, but the idea of playing with seasoned skaters like Short Stop, Boo Gogi, Primm Reaper etc. filled me with anxiety about playing poorly and letting my teammates down. What if I suck and embarrass myself and then everyone hates me forever? But some of the other skaters who were also newer were nervous too. As I met the rest of Team Korea and Friends on the track, it turned out everyone was really kind and just looking to have a good time.

This is not to suggest that I didn’t suck. I played terribly as a jammer – I scored zero points, never got lead jammer status, and when I passed the star to the pivot to become an even worse blocker, I was immediately targeted as a goat. Also, as cool as it was to play roller derby on a team full of Asians, apparently we all thought it would be clever to have 4 (the unlucky number of death in Asian numerology) as part of our derby numbers. Every time player 4, 04, 44, or 4444 (me) got called on a penalty, I got confused.

But I didn’t feel bad at all. Unlike us, the team we were playing against, Bad Ass Derby, had clearly met each other more than five minutes before the game and had probably even practiced together. Even our other jammers had to put up a good fight. One of my teammates got hit in the face and was dropping blood all over the track. We lost by a large margin, but everyone was so nice to me that I was glowing from all the fun I had while getting my ass kicked.

After the scrimmage, I sprinted to the mini-ramp where I had signed up for skatepark workshops for the rest of the afternoon, including one on doing flips at the skatepark with Octane Jane and one on grinding with Nick the Medic. Needless to say, my legs were dead by the end of the day.

In the evening, there was a derby wedding where we all dressed up as brides / grooms / whatever and walked/skated in as a wedding procession to marry our derby wives. In Ottawa, this would have been quite the spectacle, but in the context of the bright lights and baffling sights of the Fremont Experience, we blended right into the Las Vegas nightlife.

There was a prom afterwards, so I am told, but I slept instead. It was only the first day of RollerCon and I was already exhausted from having too much fun.

Friday

I woke up early to participate in the sunrise Skate the Strip event. This was my ideal way to experience the Las Vegas Strip for the first time, early before the crowds and on skates. It turned out to be a gruelling physical endurance challenge, skating 6.4 kilometres in 37°C weather, even at 6AM. There were many stairs. But it was great to meet skaters who were also early risers and we made it all the way to the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign by the airport. I managed to sneak in some aggressive street skating – it was too early in the morning for security guards to chase me away.

Back at the convention, I took jammer-specific roller derby workshops with world-class jammers like Optimus Grime and Miss Tea Maven. They shared a tonne of great jamming tips that I really could have used during my scrimmage the day before. I also took a handstand workshop with Estro Jen, who was incredibly patient with me when it became painfully obvious that I was not particularly gifted at handstands.

In the evening, the skatepark tour took us to the Hollywood skatepark, a beautifully-designed facility where the entry fee seems to deter a lot of the local skaters (the entry fee was one dollar). It featured a gorgeous bowl that was about seven feet deep at its shallowest end and, like, a million feet deep on the other side. It was too advanced for me, and I feared that if I dropped in, I might not be able to get back out again and would be stuck there to live in the bowl forever. But with the encouragement of other skaters there, I pushed through my fears and managed to figure out a few cool runs, and I was indeed able to climb back out afterward.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow that night.

Saturday

Skaters were getting fatigued and sloppy on the last official day of RollerCon. It’s what happens when you skate some eight or so hours every day. My abs were sore from the jamming drills that Optimus Grime had us doing the previous day, which essentially involved a one-armed plank to inchworm, over and over again. People were getting injured all over the place. Medics were running around all over the convention as though they were on a battlefield. Bless their souls for taking care of us.

I had been planning to do the RollerCon skatepark competition with the hopes of showcasing my sidestance tricks. But during the practice session, I fell down the spine headfirst, mildly scraping my chin, lip, and shoulder. It was a spine transfer trick that I had done a dozen times before, but I was so fatigued at this point that I was bailing on even “safe” tricks that were normally easy for me. It was a sign I needed to stop before I got hurt. I promised the stern medic checking me for a concussion that I was going to take my skates off for the rest of the day, and she told me briskly that I was a good girl, before running off to deal with the next injury. I reluctantly dropped out of the competition, knowing it was the smart thing to do.

I watched a USARS roller derby scrimmage, which uses different rules. I don’t really understand what I saw, but I really liked it a lot and would love to try it one day.

With some time to kill off skates, I spontaneously decided to take a first aid / CPR course in one of the seminar rooms, which seemed useful given my history of skate injuries. I’ve taken first aid courses before, but never at a roller skating convention, and it was a surreal experience. Some of the participants were still fully skated up. One skater had her face painted like a cat from her Feral Cats vs. Rabid Dog scrimmage, and next to her, another skater was dressed as Victoria Beckham from the Spice Girls vs. Golden Girls scrimmage. I had my shoulder bandaged up, a cut lip and a scrape on my face from my skatepark fall. All while we discussed and practiced administering chest compressions for cardiac arrest, as referees noisily blew their whistles in the background. The sight of us made me want to laugh, even though we were talking about very serious topics.

At the end of the day, when we headed out for the airport to go home, it was starting to rain, which doesn’t happen that often in the Las Vegas desert. It cooled the air down to a bearable level where I could actually breathe outside. Even though I was physically and mentally exhausted from having way too much fun, I still thought about all the things that I didn’t get to do – banked track scrimmages, USARS scrimmages, other stops on the skatepark tour, roller dance workshops, the skatepark competition, the late night dance parties. I guess I’ll have to come back to RollerCon in the future.