Utrecht Record Fair November 2021 - The furtive fair

 What a few days this has been....

Finally home on Saturday night with my records and a nice cup of tea

As mentioned yesterday, the Utrecht record fair was cancelled before it could open to the general public on Saturday. Well many collectors had the 3 day pass meaning that most of the serious buying was done on Friday as per usual

But this November's fair was very different to the usual experience. I guess around 40% of the usual dealers weren't present this time. If you add Brexit to Covid it meant that at least 80% of UK dealers didn't come. It was not just dealers from across the divide, many Dutch, German and Belgian dealers didn't gamble and stall out although many were here as buyers...

Today I managed to get in around 9am. Many dealers had already left, but many more were open for business. 

Basically Jaarbeurs cancelled the fair a few hours before the Dutch government announced the lockdown. The fair could still have taken place on Saturday legally and it seems Jaarbeurs took the decision without consulting the organisers. I won't mention more, but  the implications of this could have major repercussions for the future

So today, I spent around 3 hours picking up some nice stuff, see below

I really hope this is not the end of the Utrecht Record Fair as a major international event, here's hoping that the Spring fair will take place...even if it is not in April