The Future. A growing nostalgia for physical media and a demand for curated in-person experiences have fueled a successful return of the video store — especially among those who feel finding a movie to watch on streaming platforms to be overwhelming and impersonal. As their footprint expands, we may see the return of “Blockbuster” for a new generation.
Be kind, rewind“Tapeheads” — people dedicated to the art and technology of the old-school VHS — are winding up for a video store comeback.
The movie mecca LA has a handful (Vidiots, Be Kind Video, and WHAMMY! Analog Video), but so does Seattle (Scarecrow Video), Portland (Movie Madness), and Baltimore (Beyond Video).
They’ve been doing great business, catering to audiences who want to recapture the magic of perusing physical clamshell cases at Blockbuster and chat with knowledgeable employees.
That communal feeling is the bread and butter of the revival, with many of the stores also transforming into event spaces, single-screen cinemas, and movie-themed bars.
A byproduct of the VHS boom is that these stores have also become grassroots film archives — turning them into one of the few places on Earth where audiences can find underappreciated movies that’ve been forgotten in the streaming age. Vidiots, which returned as a nonprofit, has been financing the digitization of its collection of 11,000 rare tapes for posterity.
The post Video stores are undergoing a revival appeared first on TheFutureParty.