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Record Store Day


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For sure, but we also should be supporting indie record stores all year. One day flogging a bit of merch isn't going to keep these guys from going out of business.

 

LouieB

Yeah I hear ya...if the one I go to was slightly closer to my house I would buy something every week there! Record store day is also great because it also gets other people to the stores who may not normally shop there.

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Just saw this on my Facebook page:

 

Grateful Dead

We're pleased to announce the 180-gram vinyl re-issue of the original mono mix of Grateful Dead's eponymous first album as part of Record Store Day 2011. (The first time this album has been made available in its mono mix in almost 45 years!) The pressing is limited to 3,000 copies and is available exclusively at independent record stores.

 

It's odd - yesterday I was looking at the thousands of cds I have and was remembering a time when I use to look at, or buy a cd almost everyday. And now I might buy a couple a year, if that. It's funny how things change.

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Not really. The limited and regional releases of a lot of this stuff creates a lot of demand that is driven by the people actively seeking those things out. Ticket brokers, on the other hand, create the scarcity themselves then artificially drive up the prices.

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Not really. The limited and regional releases of a lot of this stuff creates a lot of demand that is driven by the people actively seeking those things out. Ticket brokers, on the other hand, create the scarcity themselves then artificially drive up the prices.

 

 

And how do they create the scarcity? See the underlined portion of your post.

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Huh?

 

Not sure why this is hard to understand.

 

Both are flippers. Both actively seek out supply for the purposes of reselling at a profit. Therefore, both end up reducing the supply which is available at MSRP, and creating a new supply stream at MSRP+.

 

The only difference is that the broker works on a much larger scale.

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Both can be scarce commodities. So if you think there is nothing wrong with scalping tickets or profiteering on merch, go for it. In a sense the limiting of this merch is creating a situation where the secondary market can profit. If there were plenty of each of the offerings for record day there would be no merch to put up on eBay from this event. It is just sad (to me) that anyone would intentionally buy records with no intention of actually adding them to their collection and enjoying listening to them.

 

LouieB

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Tickets are only scarce commodities once brokers snatch up handfuls of them to sell at a higher price. Therefore, they are actively engaged in the process of creating the scarce commodity. These Record Store Day releases are nowhere near the same thing. They are already limited in number and availability. Someone who buys one to sell online is not creating the scarcity. It's built in to these items already.

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Tickets are only scarce commodities once brokers snatch up handfuls of them to sell at a higher price. Therefore, they are actively engaged in the process of creating the scarce commodity. These Record Store Day releases are nowhere near the same thing. They are already limited in number and availability. Someone who buys one to sell online is not creating the scarcity. It's built in to these items already.

 

Concert tickets are limited in number and availability, too.

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Your logic is lost on me. Both are scarce (there are not an unlimited number of tickets or these records), both are bought by profiteers, both are sold to someone who is willing to pay above the initial cost of the item.

 

LouieB

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Sorta like ... record stores?

 

I'm not saying profit is bad, or business is bad (although retailers ARE bad, imo, if they sell their items above MSRP), but if someone came on here and announced that they were going to buy some Wilco tickets during the presale with the intention of scalping them, how do you think this board would respond to that?

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Concert tickets are limited in number and availability, too.

 

That doesn't mean they are scarce. I would argue that the demand for tickets at a given show is nearly equivalent to the number available. However, when ticket brokers buy up tickets to sell at a higher price, that creates artificial demand.

 

With limited and regional releases of records, the demand far exceeds the availability, thus creating a scarcity. For instance, I would like the Yeasayer 7". But it is limited to 900 copies, meaning the likelihood of it even being available at my store is remote. The nature of the release creates the demand. Someone buying it at another store and selling it online isn't creating that demand, but responding to the demand that is intrinsic with the limited release.

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I'm not sure I have much to add on this but I am also having trouble agreeing with you. There may or may not be an equivalent supply and demand for tickets at a given show. Sometimes this is true, often it isn't. Either way, in a seated venue, there is way more demand for tickets in row 1 than there is supply. If someone buys a ticket simply to resell it, they are counting on the fact that someone is prepared to pay a premium for that ticket. This is what you seem to be suggesting for RSD. Yes, you can argue if all the RSD stuff was unlimited than flipping would not be an option. So there already is an artificial demand created by RSD. But that demand is only increased by people buying items only to resell them at a profit. You are creating even more of a demand because you are buying it and don't really want it.

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Buy and sell as the market will allow I suppose. Strangely some of the merch from these record days goes unsold even a year or more later. (Kicking Televsion anyone or Neko Case's clear Middle Cyclone!!?!?) I don't go looking for this merch after the fact so I have no idea if there even is a resale market for it.

 

I have bought some records I thought I wanted and have not gotten around to listening to them yet, but have never thought about re-selling them. I did buy some merch for a needy VCer during the first RSD and sent it out a bit late and never was paid for it, so buyer beware all around I guess. I wonder if he resold it for more than I paid.

 

LouieB

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Guest Speed Racer

I've never understood the "it's exactly the same but it's on vinyl now!" lure of RSD releases. KT vinyl might have had "bonus tracks," but they're all live versions of songs everyone knows anyway. And Middle Cyclone - I've also never understood the lure of variations in vinyl's apperance. Yeah, I have a red A.M. and it's cool, but no one gives a poop if their CDs have different designs on them and I don't understand why vinyl would elicit a different reaction.

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Yeah, I have a red A.M. and it's cool, but no one gives a poop if their CDs have different designs on them...

 

Speaking of poop, I'll happily sell my Sonic Youth Dirty cd with the insert picture of the guy pooping on stuffed animals for an inflated price. I hear that one's sort of a rarity.

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I've never understood the "it's exactly the same but it's on vinyl now!" lure of RSD releases. KT vinyl might have had "bonus tracks," but they're all live versions of songs everyone knows anyway. And Middle Cyclone - I've also never understood the lure of variations in vinyl's apperance. Yeah, I have a red A.M. and it's cool, but no one gives a poop if their CDs have different designs on them and I don't understand why vinyl would elicit a different reaction.

 

I basically agree with this. There are a number of things that are going to be released on RSD this year that I'd like to get, but they're all either reissues and/or repackagings of things I don't have, or things that were previously unavailable (or long out of print) as official releases.

 

I've never gone to a RSD, and I probably won't go this year either unless there are some bands I like doing in-store performances. If some of the titles I'm interested in are still available after RSD, I might buy some of them. Fortunately for my wallet, my self-diagnosed OCD seems to be wearing off when it comes to record buying.

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