Speaking of Fair Park attractions ...
Here's another one: Beginning with the March 26 season-opener -- a double-header pitting the Deadly Kennedys against Viva La Revolucion! and the Bombshell Brigade against last year's champs the Lone Star Assassins -- Assassination City Roller Derby moves into the Fair Park Coliseum. Which means no more trips to Mesquite. "Which makes sense -- we're downtown girls, Deep Ellum girls," says Shandra Simpson -- otherwise known as Trigger Mortis.
She says Assassination City's been trying to make the move since '06, at which point they didn't have the money or crowds to justify leaving Dad's Broadway Skateland in Mesquite. "It wasn't the right time," she says. "Roller derby just wasn't big enough to play Fair Park."
But, Simpson says, last year's sold-out season convinced them it was time to go. Granted, the Mesquite rink held just 700, "but we were turning people away," Simpson says. "And we wanted to be in Dallas badly -- that's our fan base. And we gotta grow or die, and this is the moment we decided to do it. It's gonna be a big undertaking. The coliseum holds 7,000, so it's 10 times what we had capacity for. We're gonna work real hard to fill that thing up." She laughs. "Of course, we don't expect it to be filled up. At least, not at first."
The deal with the city of Dallas was inked just two weeks ago,
and Simpson says the city was "pretty receptive" to the move and "gave
us a really good deal on the venue." But Dallas will, of course,
continue to demand $10 parking per car.
"But we're not
douchebags, so we'll cover half of everyone's parking," Simpson says.
"We know our fans, and we know nobody wants to pay $10 a car to park, so
we'll pay half of everyone's parking, and we're encouraging everyone to
ride the Green Line or carpool. We're trying to get a party bus going.
That's still in the works. But I'm excited to help bring business to
Expo Park area and Fair Park.
"And it's a good match -- we're bringing a
cool element to an otherwise unused venue. We're gonna have our bouts
every month, sometimes twice during the season, and we'll still have
bands play. It's scary, but its fun, So I'm excited to see what we're
able to create on March 26."
