Video Fan Forever

Henry Lutz
Copy Editor

It could be a movie tagline: In a world of rampant online streaming, where the Internet is king, one video store must fight to survive and keep in-person renting alive. Sadly, the story is all too true for Video Fan.

The store, seated in the heart of the Fan neighborhood since 1986, is the last independent video rental store in Richmond. With most titles available for $3.85 for two nights, the store has been one of only a handful left in the United States for several years. But now, in their own words, “time is up for the Video Fan.”

According to a Kickstarter campaign that began Oct. 22, the Video Fan needs $35,200 to continue leasing the building at 403 Strawberry St. they have been calling home for almost 30 years. The campaign, titled “Video Fan Forever,” is part of the store’s last stand. Managing the fundraiser is Video Fan employee Andrew Blossom.

“The building for us preserves not just the history of the store, but the history of being part of the community,” Blossom said.

Video Fan Forever’s plan is to raise enough funds to lease the space for another year. This would give those at the store enough time to recreate the Video Fan as a nonprofit, “whose purpose would be keeping the space open, (and) protecting and enhancing the collection.”

With more than 40,000 VHS tapes and DVDs on hand, the store is home to one of the largest collections of physical media in Virginia. If the store went under, Blossom said, the collection, which took years to gather, would be broken up and sold piece by piece, tape by tape.

“The main goal will be keeping the collection together, enhancing it … and preserving it,” Blossom said. “We feel like we’ve got a resource and we want to protect it.”

While the majority of the Video Fan’s titles come from a media distributor, much of the store’s back stock is found by the staff in the surrounding area, particularly at thrift stores.

“I’m personally always out looking,” said Blossom, who frequents nearby thrift and record stores in search of hard-to-find titles.

It is their give and take with the Richmond community that has come to define the Video Fan, Blossom said.

“We see how important the community is to us and so much of the success we’ve had over the last 28 years has been contingent on being in this place,” Blossom said.

Though other video stores have folded in recent years due to the rise of online movie streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, the Video Fan has managed to outlast big chains like Blockbuster, which closed its last Richmond location in January 2014. Blossom attributes this longevity in part to the city’s student populations.

“Every day that I’ve worked here for five years, we’ve started new accounts,” Blossom said. “A lot of that is because there are colleges in the neighborhood.”

Though student clients, primarily those from nearby VCU, are important to the business,  Blossom said he has come to see another phenomenon occurring with patrons.

“People who had moved away from video stores (were) getting so frustrated with Netflix or Redbox, that they decided they didn’t want to do it anymore or that they at least wanted to have the other option,” Blossom said. “Then they would look around and see that we were still here.”

Spencer Neale, a former professor in VCU’s Cinema program, said he’s concerned about the loss of the human element that comes with the disappearance of video stores.

“In the case of the Video Fan, you have a wealth of knowledge and love in that store that hits you the second you walk in,” Neale said.

Now a professor of film studies at University of Richmond, Neale said the new ease of technology is not worth the cost of human contact.

“Were things really that hard or uncomfortable before, that I’d prefer a computer to discuss recommendations and opinions on things as incredible and human as the arts?” Neale said.

Video Fan patron and Richmonder Margaret Amonette said she plans to support the Kickstarter campaign. Amonette said that though she does have a Netflix account, if she had to choose, she would rather cancel her account than see the Video Fan go under.

“I love this place. I don’t think there are many places like this left,” Amonette said.

Video Fan Forever has received more than $9,000 of its goal thus far and with 18 days left to the campaign, time will tell if there is a happy ending to the story. For now though, the community surrounding a beloved video store might just be its saving grace.

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