u/MealQueasy4545

No question it’s a top festival - the music, sound, location, stage production are all faultless - I’ve been three times and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Every year the 200-strong lineup is stacked with just about every headline DJ you can think of, most of whom will play multiple sets across the weekend. On the surface this probably looks like a good thing, and it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement when the lineup is announced.

But that equates to 100+ standout sets of 3+ hours each over the weekend. If you forego sleep you might be lucky to catch 20 full or near-full sets, but I’d say a realistic number is 10-15 across the weekend. This means the timetable comes out and it’s clash after clash, decision after decision, and the whole experience becomes completely itinerised.

Instead of getting lost in the music, you’ve got one eye on the time to make sure you get down to the Earthling in time to get a good spot for Jane Fitz. Or your mates drag you away from a killer set to go and queue for Terminus (which btw is massively overrated imo).

You end up planning out every movement for the whole weekend and that strips away the magic and freedom that a festival should be about. The best festival experiences for me are wandering about aimlessly and stumbling on to a stage where a DJ you’ve never heard of is ripping it up and you turn to your mates and go “yeah, this’ll do”. Then when your legs are tired you can take half an hour to sit down, have a ciggy and chat some bollocks instead of making a beeline to the next unmissable set. And so on and so forth.

It’s getting harder and harder to do any of that at houghton. What’s the point getting excited about 200 names when you’ll only catch about 20 of them if you’re lucky, and the biggest ones are likely to be so overcrowded it’s not even worth going?

By all means keep 200 artists on the lineup, but do you really need 100 headliners? Houghton would still sell out every year regardless of who’s on the lineup, so why not give lesser known selectors the chance to play the set of their dreams? Why not encourage discovery and exploration while platforming emerging talent? Kill off the overcrowding and dancefloor chatter that Jane so rightly called out? Put an end to clock watching and regimented schedules? Stop the chancers/posers from buying tickets and give the festival back to the underground? Seems like a no brainer…

EDIT fully aware this is a ‘me problem’ and doesn’t apply to everyone. Not saying don’t go to houghton, it’s fantastic and everyone should go at least once. This is just my opinion and is why I now prefer other festivals instead.

EDIT: My collection is almost entirely made up of dance music. I will be selling predominantly house (tech, deep, progressive), techno, breaks, electro etc focusing on 90s/00s releases & rarities

ORIGINAL POST: Looking for advice, tips, things to avoid etc when starting out with ambitions of flogging vinyl full time.

My plan is to start with selling on Discogs, already picked about 250-300 records from my collection that will make up my initial stock (Discogs value currently at median £3k / max £5.6k).

I’m confident that I can grade a record accurately and know to avoid over-grading at all costs - eg some bits I’ll list as VG+ that I’m 99% sure would pass for NM but not worth the risk.

When enough money starts coming in I’ll reinvest earnings into buying wholesale & pick up full collections to build up a bigger inventory.

If the online selling works out then I’ll look at moving into physical spaces starting with record fairs, seeing if I can set up a mini shop in existing venues (hifi bars etc), taking stock to music festivals etc.

Then of course the end goal is to some day have a store of my own, but to be honest if I can make anything close to a liveable income I’ll be happy.

Should mention also that as of now I am still working and will not be relying on this to pay the bills, I am fully aware it’ll take time to build this into a viable source of income.

Imagine this is a fairly typical roadmap to building a record business but eager to hear from anyone with similar experience, and advice on things to look out for to give myself the best chance of succeeding. Thanks!

Can anyone recommend a good place to look for a nice dj desk / booth to support 2x 1210s + omnitronic TRM-422 (although planning to upgrade to a Resor soon) with ample record storage below.

Basically after higher quality alternatives to the ikea kallax without breaking the bank (up to £1k budget). Would love a flush top / sunken type surface if possible but that seems to be where it starts to get a little pricier.

As far as I know there isn’t a word or name for this type of dj furniture outside of desk or booth which throw out all kinds of irrelevant results when entered into a search engine.