Spiritualized

Hello,
So, i have booked a stall at a record fair in order to raise funds for an event i am doing.
Would love to hear from any folk who have done the same. People who just go as a one off.
What do you wish you had known?
Or didn't know you needed to know...

Cheers

I miss the days of the huge record fayres in Glasgow. I can remember spending full weekends and lots of money at those. Last time i seen one in Glasgow it had been moved to a smaller hall in another part of the city and was just mainly people selling overprices stones/zeppelin/floyd items and people clearing out CDs. Very disappointing.

Do the ViP ones still happen? Am i just out of the loop?

Bring lots of small monies to make change.
Bring bags for customers to put their purchases into.
Price everything you can.
Alphabetize if you have time or inclination.
Sort by genre if that makes sense to you.
Consider a low-cost box of 1 GBP / $1 records.

We have some good ones here. I have set up as a dealer a few times. If you have good stuff priced right, you can make money. But you never know what buyers will turn up and what they are looking for.

I tend to under-price other dealers because I want to move records, not take them home.

Last time I brought a crate of CDs, I only sold one, and they were only $1 each. Demand is for vinyl. Stock the titles people want if you can - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, psyche and punk.

I used to love going to record fairs about 10 years ago. they used to be full of hidden treasures, music memorabilia etc etc.
as said above, now it just seems to be people trying to shift a lot of CDs.

I think the internet has totally shafted record fairs. if you want a particular record you just go on the net now.

I try to go to this once a year.

http://colstonhallrecordfair.co.uk

Always found a few gems. People are easy to deal with and it;s quite a lot of fun.

B,

M

At least in this part of the states, record fairs are still worth attending.

For one, you don't pay shipping. For another, you can haggle on price with most dealers.

Crappy dealers do overprice their records, and some don't budge on price. They will take them home and try at another show. Some of these guys (and they are primarily men) don't seem to care, they want top dollar and are willing to wait.

I have found great deals at shows. It really depends who is set up.

The last few record fairs I have been to in the UK have been pretty poor. Part of it seems to be that the price of 2nd hand vinyl has shot through the roof so bargains are much harder to find. The major issue for me was state of the people attending the fair; no social skills, no manners, and absolutely no personal hygiene all seem to be acceptable. TBH, discogs, buying new boutique issues and a bit of patience for the rarity are much more my thing these days.....

Smelly buyers are bad. It happens here, too.

I found a Death in Vegas 1-sided 12" for $5 that would have cost me $15 + shipping online, so I would not have bought it otherwise.

I think it really depends on the expo and the vendors. More overpriced than not, but that's why we dig.

Where in PA do you go Dave? I'm in Maryland, so i could be close, but could also be kind of far...

My days of record fairs are long gone. Been to some epic UK record fairs over the years. Particularly the Victoria record fair several times. It always seemed like it fell on Super Bowl weekend too. I used to sneak in with Runcible like I was setting up with them to get that 1 hour head start. So much fun. The Brighton record fair used to be pretty great too back in the day. The one at the Brighton Centre.

marcvolta wrote:Where in PA do you go Dave? I'm in Maryland, so i could be close, but could also be kind of far...

I'm in Eastern PA, about an hour north of Philadelphia, so probably not close to you. I have friends who live on the Eastern Shore of MD, they come up here sometimes and it's 3 hours or so.

I have set up in Allentown and in Lancaster, both in PA.

olan wrote:, discogs, buying new boutique issues and a bit of patience for the rarity are much more my thing these days.....

Couldn't agree more.

So i did the record fair.
It went well.
I made my money back.
I sold one record for more that i have ever brought a record for...
Bit of an odd situation that.
By that stage of the afternoon i had done the patter on those discs 3 or 4 times.

I was asking a lot, but the story behind it...
this disc is not on discogs... leading experts in the field don't know about it... it is likely that this is the only example in this hemisphere ... ITS REALLY GOOD! Of you liked XXX then this is another league... if you don't like it here is my email adress and i'll refund you - if you deliver it back to me at my home... OK, are you sure? Right that's YYY please - THANK YOU!

In other instances it was a case of "well, if you want to give me some money for it (any money) you can have it."
And the main reason for being there was to promotehttps://crossroadsofsabbath.wordpress.c ... he-warpig/... and i did plenty of that.

Massive thanks to starfish of this parish for the assistance.

Glad it went well, Rob. And thanks for the veg from your allotment!