Status Of Your Local Record Convention/Show
esskay
221 Posts
Just wanted to get feedback from the sellers & buyers out there on the status of your local record convention & /or show. We all know buyers have fallen off because of Serato, bad economy, dealers putting good stuff on Ebay, etc. Lately the only thing that makes selling worthwhile for me is one strong customer & Japanese customers-most of the other clientele are pretty much lookey loos. I help my friend promote his show but also people just don't come like they used to. Also sold for the first time @ Austin @ spring show & was not that impressed w/variety of music-Is WFMU just the better show. Thoughts on your town? Thanx.
Comments
True most people don't bring out a lot of high dollar stuff any more, but out here, most people never bought a lot of high dollar stuff.
One reason record shows and stores do well out here is that most stores and sellers realize that most buyers are looking for records to listen to and not collectibles. So most records are reasonably priced.
The Eugene show has about 100 tables and packs in the buyers. Sellers and buyers leave happy.
The Night Owl Record Show is perhaps the greatest record show ever. Next show is October 15th. I am not in impartial observer, 3 other strutters and I started the show.
The other Oregon show is in Camby and I have not been for years.
There is a 45 & 78 show in Tacoma. Low key affair with crusty guys and a few young folks looking to flip or dj soul 45s.
There is an Olympia show getting off the ground that is patterned after the Night Owl.
Seattle is a whole other story. There are 6-10 shows a year in Seattle, more than can be sustained. The cost of living is high and the city seems to lack the vinyl culture that is strong in Portland and in Eugene. Seattle is much larger than Portland but has a lot fewer vinyl record stores.
Why would someone spend time and money to travel to a Record Show to buy records at Ebay prices?
If you want to do well at a Record Show in 2011 either bring good clean cheap titles or collectibles at 1/2 of ebay rates.
Flipping through crates at a Record Show with high end plus Popsike prices makes my head explode.
No reason to hit both of them anymore. Its been the same 30 dealers for the past 5 years selling what seems like the same old non-raers.
Attendance has remained pretty steady for the past few years, but there were some LEAN shows back about 3 years ago.
How much do you have to do in sales at a record convention for you to consider it a success??
Crusty old record dealers should be pitching in for hotel room comps and escorts!
It's pretty much always been that the money spent at a Record Show has been 25% collector who are filing their purchases and 75% dealers that are gripping and flipping.
Pre-Internet these dealers were U.S. store owners and catalog dealers who knew their clientele well and knew what they could flip for a profit and foreign dealers who could mark up their purchases 10X when they got home.
In the late 90's ebay changed the game and dealers began to realize that the weird and "crappy" records they were selling for five bucks were going for $100+ in japan and Europe.
This was the peak of the record game for these dealers as they used ebay to cut out the middle man and realized top dollar for their records.
Those who didn't catch on to this were left in the dust to fade away with their $50 Badfinger LP's and $100 Nazz red wax crapola.
But this also meant that 75% of the money spent at Record Shows disappeared.
Dealers could no longer afford to fly in for a show like ARC and pay Popsike prices so the shows began to die.
Record stores who once relied on "secret" or "private" customers also died as these customers no longer needed the store owner to go out and find rare records...they could do it themselves on the Internet.
The game evolved and those who didn't recognize and adapt became extinct.
Make no mistake, there is still good money to be made in selling records, it's just done differently now than 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
And from a personal perspective, the only thing worse than the "crusty" dude who still lives in 1975 is the young Timmy Dig-A-Lot who thinks by virtue of having access to the internet they have the record game on lock.....I have no use for either other than to exploit their ignorance for cash in my pocket.
yes, you do
There are a few people I've met in my life who do......very few.......and I'm not one of them.
Surprisingly, Columbia (owned by Sony co-inventor of the cd) kept a lot of vinyl in print, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Sly & FS and Robert Johnson and other good stuff.
But in terms of groovy soul jazz there was not much in print on vinyl.
But then those James Brown things came out and it started snowballing to the point where BT Express records are even back in print these days.
That along with Serrato and the death of original vinyl dj culture, has meant a decrease in the value of a lot of records.
All that has little to do with the state of record shows.
What makes shows like Eugene so good is that 75% of sales goes to collectors (or just music lovers) who are filing their purchases and only 25% to dealers who are looking to grip and flip. Those of us who get there before dawn and watch a few tables get mobbed and stripped might think that it is all dealers, but it aint. And as amazing as it is to see that kind of shark feed, it is the steady sales through the day that amounts to most sales, not the early morning sharks.
The issue is pricing records.
At a record show people accept cash, which in practice always means people arent reporting that money to the IRS - save you more or less 10% depending on your income and tax rate.
Then you're not paying fees to ebay/paypal/discogs. Another 10%.
Then you save dozens of hours listing/shipping. How much is that time worth? Better be at least 10-20%.
So if every seller acted rationally, their records would be priced at 50-60% of the usual online price. Great deal for collectors, and enough of a resale margin for dealers, depending on their focus.
It's pretty clear to me at this point that unless you have a strong business and following selling records online, its simply a more economically rational decision to:
1) consign records to a physical store or online seller
2) sell them at a discount at a record show.
The way of going to a record show and seeing titles that a dealer just hauled in from a collection that fell in their lap, where everything is $5? It's over, but that expectation isn't.
Most often though what i see is a huge glut of common VG records for 3-5 dollars. There is an enormous glut, at least here on the west coast, of just middling quality and condition stuff that everyone wants to get rid of because no one has space. Im talking dudes with three car garages filled with it. This is what really drags things down, but we're all guilty of wanting to get rid of that stuff because when it does sell, its basically free money.
Not everyone.
6 dealers and like 50 people? GTFOH, it's not a club event.
I'm mad doggie.
I wanted a different show than the typical crust - pro 40s Beatles/ rock schitt show that is put on and is impossible to find a disco 12 or rap raer. I'm not looking at you Bass Fever.
First one was off the chart - cold weather, awesome part of town, weirrd venue, and different dealers made for a fun time, DJ's, cold beer
Second was asi asi - same dealers sans local cool dudes with wierd raers, hot dog street vendor, DJ's, awesome art venue, with poor turnout, Memorial weekend - not a good weekend for a show.
Up in the air if I'll do it again, I want different dealers though, my tables are super cheap, and I promote.
I hear you.
But when it comes to conflicts, get used to it. If you are in a metro area other things are going to be happening that weekend. Of course if it is on Easter Sunday, or Super Bowl Sunday or the same day as another show then there was a screw up. They happen too.
Which brings us to this complaint, "People didn't come out because (Pick one; rain, sunshine, too cold, too hot)".
I also love face to face commerce. I like to hear stories from the dudes who have been doing it forever. I like to haggle. I like to see youngins take the records they bought from me and ecstatically show them to their friends. I like to make suggestions to people of stuff they would never look for on eBay. I love dealing in cash.
And like I said, it's enough for me to keep my collection evolving without investing any more money into it.
My bad-senility in effect-we were buying reissues way back in the late 80's & early 90's on SF trips-hit up Groove Merchant maybe 6 months after it opened.