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The cassette revival rolls on at the first annual NYC Tape Fair on Sunday
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Apr 26, 2025
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Courtesy of Anthony Morton
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Apr 26, 2025
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The first-ever NYC Tape Fair is Sunday at Selva, an art gallery and record store in Bushwick. More than a dozen vendors will be selling rare, vintage VHS and cassette tapes, along with a few new ones.
The festival comes at a moment when cassette tapes, along with vinyl, have been enjoying a growing resurgence. Top sellers like Taylor Swift and Charli XCX each moved tens of thousands of units last year, according to data tracker Luminate.
Ted Schmiedeler, former station director of Columbia’s student-run radio station WKCR, plans to attend.
He said that tape cassettes are the cure for everything he dislikes about streaming services, algorithms and the “mechanization of music.”
“When I sit down with a tape in my Walkman, I can’t skip, fast-forwarding is a hassle, I’m just stuck with the music that’s in front of me,” said Schmiedeler, 21, who bought his Walkman on eBay. “I should be able to listen to a full album on a walk, and with Spotify I often can’t bring myself to do that.”
The Tape Fair happens Sunday.
Courtesy of Tape Fair
“If you’re not already a fan, there’s an incredibly low financial barrier to entry – under $20 and you get amazing stuff,” said Anthony Morton, the fair’s co-founder. “And if you’re not a VHS tape collector, seeing some of the more niche and obscure VHS and tapes is just a fascinating piece of Americana.”
While movie studios and TV networks aren’t producing new VHS tapes, there’s a thriving market of niche collectors.
The Found Footage Festival, created by comedians from The Onion and "The Late Show," describes itself as “a celebration of the videos that time forgot.” In a weekly YouTube series, they show off their latest bizarre VHS finds, along with commentary and “where are they now” updates about the subjects.
Morton said the Found Footage Festival will be at the tape fair as well, selling VHS doubles and extras from its archive and connecting with other fans of the format.
Cassette-heavy stores including Paradise of Replica and Captured — the physical outpost of Brooklyn record label Captured Tracks — will be offering their wares at the Tape Fair, along with VHS tapes from the newly reopened Night Owl Video and sizable independent collectors including Morton and cofounder Ricardo Marrero.
Schmiedeler said cassette tapes are a big part of WKCR's music library, especially in the international music department, where fans and alums of the station have donated sizable collections of rare cassettes that get regularly play on popular shows like the Sunday evening “Raag Aur Taal,” a long-running South Asian classical music show that birthed the annual Ragas Live Festival.
“A lot of that stuff is yet to migrate onto the internet, so those shows really rely on tapes,” Schmiedeler said.
“I think tapes are going to make a big comeback similar to vinyl. They’re going to be an ‘aesthetic’ soon,” Schmiedeler said. “People will find it cool to further move away from Spotify and algorithms, and walking around with a Walkman might become a signifier of that soon.”
“I’m telling people to get in early,” he said.
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Ryan Kailath
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