There are few weekends at the Mahoning that can match VHS Fest. It's an annual event that takes place in the second weekend of July and features dozens of vendors selling movies, movie memorabilia, and other goodies, as well as a lineup of movies that bring us back to the days of the 80's and 90's when we'd grab a pile of tapes from our local video store. I'll write about the movies soon, but this post is all about the vendors and the things that they had at their tables.
There were fewer vendors on site this year compared to VHS Fest 7, but that was by design. I believe that they capped each day at 40 vendors, some of whom were on the lot for just one or two days while others were there for all three days, and I think this made for a better experience for everyone. Not only was there a lot more room to move around, but the limited number of spaces likely helped the folks who were vending to make more than they did last year.
Crypt Video Rentals had a shop on the stage outside of the concession building that resembled an old mom & pop video rental store. In addition to selling movies, they offered a tape cleaning service for anyone who had a rare or valuable VHS or Beta tape that had gotten damaged by humidity.
Lunchmeat have been one of the co-sponsored of VHS Fest since the beginning, so they naturally had one of the larger tables on the lot. I picked up a sweatshirt, some stickers, and a very nice tape stand that was created by James Dufendach.
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| Photo by Sean O'Rourke |
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| Photo by Rob T. |
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| Photos by Justin Cluckey |
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| Photos by Dave Wright |
Most of the photos that I took of the vendors were at a distance. I feel kind of weird taking pictures of the merchandise because I don't want to give the impression that I'm about to haggle with them over finding something on eBay at a better price, and I also don't want to accidentally take pictures of people who don't want their picture taken, so here are some photos shared by the Mahoning staff and the vendors themselves.
One of my favorite parts of VHS Fest are the shows put on by the guys from the Found Footage Festival. I've been a fan of theirs for years prior to our discovering the Mahoning Drive-In Theater. I picked up the first eight volumes of their show on DVD from their merch table, and I'm looking forward to spending an evening in the near future watching them and laughing my ass off.
I'm a sucker for a good mystery bag. One of the stands had a box of them available for five dollars. Each bag contained three tapes and some bonus stickers, and your only clue of what was inside was written on the outside of the bag. I bought one labeled "Monsters" and was happy to find that it contained Night Of The Living Dead, Dracula: A Cinematic Scrapbook, and Frankenstein.
There were a lot of cool things for sale on the lot this past weekend, but my favorite purchase was this art project. Late Night With The Devil is easily in my top five horror films that I saw for the first time in 2024. Kozmo of Cosmic Debris VHS liked it too, but he wasn't a fan of how it changed the aspect ratio for some scenes, and the fact that it began as a faux-documentary but it didn't end in the same way. He re-edited the film to remove the intro and the backstage segments added commercials from 1977 into the breaks to make it feel like it's something that was recorded off of television from start to finish. It's brilliant!
I'm always on the lookout to find the movies that they're showing on the big screen during VHS Fest. I was able to pick up three of them at this year. The photo at the top is an old bootleg of Nightmare Sisters that I picked up from Hayden Hall, who is the artist who designs the VHS Fest poster every year since I've been going. I bought this copy of Robot Ninja from J.R. Bookwalter who wrote, directed, and produced it. He and actor James L. Edwards who plays Sculley in the film had a table outside of the concession building. Mr. Edwards signed the back front of the tape cover, and Mr. Bookwalter signed the back. Finally, this copy of David "The Rock" Nelson's short film Conrad Brooks vs Werewolf was purchased about ten minutes after we saw it on the big screen, and I wasn't alone. The entire lot was laughing their ass off during this screening, and as soon as the Found Footage Festival guys said that it was available for sale, Tom, Mike, and I each ran over to their table and purchased a copy. This one is for the Marines!
Soylent Green is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I was happy to find a big box MGM tape, as well as a copy of Make Room! Make Room! that the movie was based on. The written story came out seven years before the movie, but this paperback was published shortly after the movie premiered, which is why the actual name of the novel is in small print on the cover beneath the title of the movie that was based on it.
These are the rest of the tapes that I picked up at VHS Fest 8. I didn't buy any one thing that was rare or expensive, but I did get a lot of great deals on some of my favorite films, as well as others that have been on my watch list for a long time. I'm sure I'll have more to say about each of these movies as I watch them, but I'm going to save that for another day.
Speaking of having more to say on another day, this post is the first in a three part series. Part Two will be about the event itself and the special guests, and Part Three will be focused on the movies that were screened on each of the three nights of VHS Fest 8.
