Having spent my formative years going to fairs at venues such as The Griffin in Leeds , Roundhay, black music fairs in Manchester in the mid late eighties etc etc and only in the last ten or fifteen years visited fairs sporadically are fairs these days worth going to in this armchair / internet world we live in now?

Working as a retail manager my weekends are work committed and the odd one I fancy going to falls on a work day usually... 

Also,  used to go to the black music fairs when I lived in London ( run by DT records was it in north west London ?) and wonder why there aren't regular black music fairs these days? 

Stories/comments / tips / recommendations welcome!  Aside from record stalls at soul nights I musically grew up and educated myself at fairs. Perish the thought of what I used to miss - doesn't bare thinking about! 

Used to spend whole days going to record shops and when visiting any major city the first thing we would want to do is find the record shops.

 

must admit i'm more of an internet browser now and cant get excited about record fairs.  A new one started up in nottingham quite recently so i might pop in for a browse one day.

 

the internet has changed it imo same for a lot of retail i buy nearly all my clothes online and do the big supermarket shop online as well.

Same for me Dylan these days - I'm an armchair collector / listener for a number of years as you know and I keep threatening to get out and about but bloody work always gets in the way! I miss the social side of collecting and know fairs these days are probably not what they were but interested all the same. Like the record hunting/discoveries thread stateside am sure there's stories out there from our own uk shores... One of the last ones I went to was in skipton a good 6 or 7 few years ago and scored a decent stack of stax 45s inc Wendy rene, oscar mack , for next to nothing. Guess it's confined to nostalgia unless you do the big USA fairs or Utrecht etc? 

  On 20/07/2017 at 18:03, dylan said:

Used to spend whole days going to record shops and when visiting any major city the first thing we would want to do is find the record shops.

 

must admit i'm more of an internet browser now and cant get excited about record fairs.  A new one started up in nottingham quite recently so i might pop in for a browse one day.

 

the internet has changed it imo same for a lot of retail i buy nearly all my clothes online and do the big supermarket shop online as well.

I run the Nottingham fair.Some great 45s sold there.Just booked all the dates for 2018.

Good for you chaser hope they go well for you. With the love of vinyl etc these days you think\see there's a younger crowd or is it all us 40\50\60 + die hards? Lots of soul etc sold at your fairs? 

Trying to create a good mix of every age, both youngsters just getting into vinyl - older general public buying those pop classics again that they got rid of and then the hardened collectors after those rareties.One way or another fairs are certainly getting a resurgence.I love the U.S. fairs or Record Shows as they call them.Always plenty of gems hidden in between which the americans aren't clued up on yet.