![Punters hunt for a bargain at the Dunedin Record and Pop Culture Fair at the Steamer Basin...](https://www.odt.co.nz/sites/default/files/styles/odt_landscape_extra_large_21_10/public/story/2024/01/record_fair.jpg?itok=XRfAJEG-)
Dunedin Record and Pop Culture Fair organiser Scott Muir thought much the same, and so it seems did Dunedin, with several hundred punters braving the Sunday morning drizzle to score a bargain.
Mr Muir said he and organiser Leighton Jones put their heads together in October last year, two vinyl enthusiasts themselves.
"We started buying and selling records online and thought it would be much more fun to do it in as social of an environment that we could."
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A total of 12 vendors set up stalls outside the Steamer Basin Brewery and Taproom.
Mr Muir said the fair was so busy it was hard to keep up with numbers, with customers clamouring to get in half an hour early.
In fact, the event was such a "roaring success" he said people approached him about being a vendor next time.
"There were a remarkable number of young people there buying them. It wasn’t just crusty old guys like ourselves obsessing over something really obscure, it was people genuinely looking to enjoy some interesting music."
Mr Muir said there had been a massive revival of interest in vinyl records because they could be made cheaper and were much more widely available than they used to be.
He said he sold one customer a copy of Michael Jackson’s Bad, who told him his mum used to play it a lot.
Another teenage customer scoured each and every stall for as much Pink Floyd as he could carry.
"It’s a really different experience to Spotify or Apple Music or any of those kinds of things, where you sort of lean back and it gets fed to you.
"This way you’ve got to really lean in and listen properly."
Mr Muir said they made the conscious decision to not have a turntable playing specific records at the fair, instead putting the focus on conversation and community — the best sounds you could ask for.
"Obviously people in Dunedin like their vinyl records."
tim.scott@odt.co.nz . PIJF cadet reporter