Anybody still go to record shows?

The Buena Park show, and Pasadena City Swap were the cats meow in LA for a couple of decades. Since I got used to them at the peak, I can't stand going now. I got spoiled.

 

It's been over a year since I last posted in this thread and although I still go to the local shows I've been increasingly disappointed with every visit for precisely this reason. I used to go home with 20+ records after some shows but in 2018 I bought about a fraction of that. At the last show I was at, I was selling, but if I went to buy only I'd have been seriously disappointed.

The next one is coming up in March and I'll be selling again (doubles, things I don't want anymore) and I'm hoping that the money we raise will be well spent at the WFMU fair in NYC.

But I can actually see a day when I don't bother anymore, if the lack of selection keeps up.

 

For those selling vinyl, how are the prices? Is it worth getting a table?
How much haggling? DO prices ever get bid up?

 

Record shows are like going to Goodwill but the records are priced 10 times higher

 

Just yesterday. Went to the greater Orange County Record Show at the UCFW Union Hall one block from my hous in Buena Park, CA

 

And...

 

Didn’t find anything I needed which happens more and more as the years go by. My buddy found a mint copy of Plastic Letters LP for $10...about half of what you’d find on eBay.

 

I live in Yorkshire, UK in a small town called Skipton. We have a Town Hall Record `Show' (or `Fair' as we call them) every 6 weeks or so. I went to the latest yesterday, and initially my heart sank to see that the main hall was closed for refurbishment and the number of stalls was about 30% of what it usually is. Having said all of that, I found some great stuff, and at great prices too. Walked out of there an hour or two later with 8 albums I really wanted, some of which were a surprise to find, like a Nice `Live In Sweden 67' album with a great insert and coloured vinyl, and the Peter Gabriel German album, both of which I picked up for £5 a piece. It's the element of surprise I still really enjoy, and the ritual of coming home, cleaning up the secondhand ones, putting them in new inners, playing through them and adding them to the collection. True happiness right there !

 

Too Similar, overpriced junk from the same old sellers.
I go to a few a year but it is very hard to find good stuff.
I lookout for new sellers as it often means a private person is selling their collection!

 

You're not wrong.

 

I only take one crate of LP's and a one of singles.
I get charged $10 AUD and clear $450 AUD.
Does that sound okay?

 

First time in years I bought no vinyl! Got some good $1 jazz cd's.
Thanks Jerry! (Did you win the Dylan clock?)

 

That's been pretty much my experience for (at least) the past decade.

 

I stopped going to our local show. A lot of the same old dealers, and high priced dollar bin records. The high priced stuff is too high priced, and the condition is usually not worth the price. At least they have free pizza if you show up.

 

Never been to a record show and based on this thread looks like I have not missed much.. I do most shopping on discogs . I spend time creating my huge want list and let discogs algorithms help me get the best deals

 

^ This.

I hadn't gone to a record show in a number of years and went to one in November of last year - there's one that happens every month in NYC and I'd never gone. I happened to have a completely free Saturday, so I figured I'd check it out.

Massive disappointment. First of all, they actually charged an admission fee. Then, once I was in, there was less than a dozen vendors - probably 8 or 9. Of those, a few were concentrated solely on 45s, so I didn't even look at those (I don't collect 45s). That only left a handful of vendors for me to check out.

Apologies to any of them that might read this board, but they pretty much sucked. The best of the bunch had everything priced about 3X as high as they should be, but since he was having a "sale," (everything half off!), they were only moderate rip-offs. The biggest problem was that almost nothing was in really good shape, which is what I had planned on looking at. I guess my own expectations of the experience were a bit out of whack - I was assuming that there were vendors bringing their prized stuff to these shows, due to there being a clientele of dedicated fans who were ready to buy. Instead, it was 1) mostly overpriced junk, or 2) overpriced common-to-moderately-common items in decent shape that can generally be found at any decent record store (not to mention Discogs) for less money.

I really didn't get it. Only die-hards are going to pay an admission fee to look at records on a Saturday, and presumably these are the people most in the know about what the items should cost. I didn't see anybody buying anything, except for some swapping between the vendors themselves.

I left very disappointed and will not likely ever got that particular show again. *Any* half decent area record store would be a more satisfying experience than looking through what those vendors had to offer.

 

So far I've learned record buyers bitch about buying online and not knowing the actual condition due to grading flaws and how nice it is to find something "in the wild", and will also bitch about having to wake up in the morning and there being records there to look at they don't want as well as not every obscure gem they do, which when it does show up is not $5.

 

I go to 2-3 a year.

Mostly to sell.

 

What you're saying isn't untrue, but there has to be some perspective to this post. The value of seeing an item in person is definitely important. The value of seeing an item in person that you've been looking for increases (and therefore makes one more prone to overpaying) based on its rarity of being seen "in the wild," as it were.

There's not much value to a buyer encountering items that can be found pretty much anywhere, for cheaper, at exorbitant prices at a record show. That's not "complaining," it's just stating a fact.

 

So a Gort has a gatekeeper too!

 

The bi-annual Austin, Texas Record Convention has been around since 1981 and is still
worth a look for LPs/45s/CDs. Plus it's in Austin...so it's more fun than, say, Allentown.