The Roller Wave · Launch PR and media relations · Brooklyn and Houston, 2023
Pack the opening at home, then get known where nobody has heard of you.
The Roller Wave had four months at Atlantic Terminal Mall, from 11 February to 4 June 2023. A pop-up gets one opening, and the press has to land while people can still buy a ticket. We built the Brooklyn launch on the story of where roller disco came from, filled the rink, and then took the brand to Houston, a city that had never heard of it.
- Client
- The Roller Wave
- Principal
- Harry Martin, founder
- Role
- Launch PR, media relations
- Markets
- Brooklyn, then Houston
The line at the door on PIX 11, the ribbon cutting on News 12, and NBC News on the roller skating revival. February and March 2023.
The problem
A pop-up gets one opening. The press has to land before it.
The Roller Wave had run sold-out residencies and events around New York, but had never had a room of its own. Atlantic Terminal Mall gave it 24,000 square feet and a 9,000-square-foot rink, for four months. A lease that short leaves no time to build slowly. The opening weekend has to be full, and the city has to hear about it the week before, not the week after.
A new roller rink is not news on its own. The history behind it is. Harry Martin grew up skating at Empire Roller Rink in Crown Heights, which closed in 2007. Black skaters built roller disco, and after 1964 many rinks still admitted them only on segregated “Soul Nights.” A Black-owned rink bringing roller disco back to Brooklyn is a story an editor can run, so that is the story we pitched.
A new rink is not news. What it means to Brooklyn is.
The Brooklyn launch · February to March 2023
Previews first, then opening day on television, then the mayor.
The first four previews ran more than a week before the doors opened, while readers could still buy a ticket. The TV crews came for opening day and the officials came for the ribbon cutting. Then the story kept running into spring.
Four previews in three days
Secret NYC, amNewYork, Time Out New York and 6sqft all announced the opening more than a week ahead.
The heritage story
BK Reader ran it as a Black-owned rink bringing roller disco back to the borough, two days before opening.
Opening day on television
PIX 11 and News 12 covered the opening. News 12 ran the story across its Bronx, Long Island and New Jersey editions the same evening.
The mayor on the floor
Mayor Eric Adams, Attorney General Letitia James, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Council Member Crystal Hudson came out for the opening. Bklyner reported the ribbon cutting.
News 12 comes back
A News 12 Road Trip segment on the rink, five weeks after opening.
National
NBC News featured the rink in a national story on the roller skating revival, reporting that thousands of people had already visited.
Pitch the week before. Coverage after the doors open is a recap.
The number
What this page claims, and where it comes from.
We count impressions only where a publisher, station or rating service states an audience figure. None of these outlets publishes one for a single story or segment, so this page carries no impressions total.
| Item | Position |
|---|---|
| Previews | Secret NYC, 1 February. amNewYork, 2 February. Time Out New York and 6sqft, 3 February. BK Reader, 9 February. Untapped New York, 17 February 2023. |
| Television, Brooklyn | PIX 11 and News 12 on the opening, 11 February. News 12 Road Trip, 16 March. NBC News, 28 March, online and on NBC News NOW. |
| The opening | Mayor Eric Adams, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Council Member Crystal Hudson, as reported by Bklyner on 20 February 2023. Attorney General Letitia James also attended. |
| Sold out from opening | Sessions sold out through the first two weeks. Playbook MG’s figure, not a publisher’s. |
| Visitors | NBC News reported that thousands of people had visited by late March. No exact figure was published, so none is claimed. |
| Houston Life, KPRC 2 | 24 August 2023. Booked by Playbook MG with no prior contacts in the market. |
| Segment audiences | No per-segment figures are published. Houston was the number seven US TV market in 2022-23, with 2,666,330 TV homes per Nielsen. That is the size of a market, not an audience. Nothing counted. |
| Not claimed | The Seismique partnership, which the founder negotiated. The Yelp Elite event, which Yelp initiated. A paid August wire release, later withdrawn. |
The Brooklyn result is easy to check. The rink was full, the mayor came, and the stories are still online. None of it needs an inflated impressions total to make the point.
The second market · Houston, August 2023
In a city that has never heard of you, find the show that has to.
Brooklyn knew The Roller Wave by spring. Houston had never heard of it, and we had no contacts there. The next opening was a rink inside Seismique, the city’s immersive art museum, in a deal the founder negotiated himself. Our job was to make sure Houston heard about it before opening day.
A news desk in a new city has no reason to care about a brand from somewhere else. A local lifestyle show does, because its whole format is telling viewers what’s opening and where to go this weekend. We aimed the pitch at that format rather than the news desk.
Seismique, not Brooklyn
Houston viewers already knew Seismique. We led with the city’s own venue gaining something new, and the Brooklyn origin became background.
Producer confirmed
Houston Life’s correspondent agreed to the segment. We had no relationship in the market, so the pitch had to work cold.
On air and online
“Inside the colorful new roller rink to open at Seismique immersive art museum.” It aired live on Houston Life and was published on Click2Houston the same day, eight days after the producer said yes and weeks before the rink opened.
The only story on the topic page
It remains the only article on Click2Houston’s Roller Wave topic page. For a Houston viewer searching the brand on the station’s site, this segment is the whole record.
Pitch the format, not the brand. Lifestyle shows need something new every day.
What it cost
The honest part.
- Self-distribution failed in Houston
- We first sent the Houston announcement to outlets ourselves through an email platform. Nothing came of it, so we fell back to a paid wire. Cold email into a market where you’re unknown gets ignored. That should have been expected, not discovered.
- The engagement ended before the payoff
- Work stopped on 28 August, days after the Houston segment and before the Houston opening. There was no wrap report. The Houston result was never packaged for the client, which is the easiest way to make good work look smaller than it was.
If nobody writes the wrap report, the win might as well not have happened.
What transfers
Three rules for opening any venue.
- Pitch the history, not the opening
- A new venue is not news. What it means to the neighborhood is. The Roller Wave’s Brooklyn story was roller disco coming home, and that is the story editors ran.
- Book the week before
- Coverage that runs before opening sends people to the door. Coverage after opening is a recap. Land previews at least a week out, while readers can still buy a ticket.
- In a new city, start with lifestyle programs
- Lead with the local partner and pitch the shows that exist to cover what’s new. They take cold pitches a news desk would ignore, and one segment gives you a local credit to show every desk after that.
Opening a venue starts with getting the city to show up.
Playbook MG is a boutique public relations and influencer agency in Brooklyn, working with culture-rooted brands and founders across leisure, hospitality, food and beverage, beauty, fashion, entertainment, arts and nonprofits. This page claims only the coverage and results Playbook MG worked on. Partnerships and events that came from elsewhere are listed as such and are not claimed.
All case studiesPlaybook MG · Industry City, Brooklyn · Coverage dates as published · Market size per Nielsen 2022-23 universe estimates · As of September 2026