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Penticton  

An event for the records

Dustin Godfrey

From vinyl shopping to vintage clothing to a live painting, Okanagan Vinyl Fest brought it all to Penticton on Sunday.

The event, which entered its fifth year, is intended as a fundraiser for the Peach City Community Radio station. It's also an opportunity for vinyl lovers to celebrate their medium of choice for listening to music.

"This is our biggest fundraiser of the year," said Peach City Radio president Dave Del Rizzo. "It's a celebration of vinyl and ... music on vinyl."

Del Rizzo said the event has brought vendors from from all over to sell their goods.

"We've got vendors from all over the Okanagan, from Alberta, from Vancouver, and they brought their vinyl here to sell," he said.

But the event brought more than vinyl to the tables. CDs, tape cassettes, wood furniture for holding records, audio gear and vintage clothing were also up for sale at the Penticton Seniors' Drop-In Centre on Sunday.

Still, Del Rizzo said people are attracted to vinyl for its warm sound and its greater physical presence compared to digital music.

"It's more tangible, you hold it in your hand, it's big, you can really see that album cover," he said. "You can read the liner notes, because they're nice and big in a larger format, whereas with a CD you generally have to get a microscope out to read all the fine print."

With hundreds of records on sale, Del Rizzo said he's confident people will find some solid tunes to bring home – especially those who paid a little more for the early bird entry.

"People know that they get hear early, and they can be the first ones to pick through somebody's collection and find that gem that nobody's gotten their hands on, yet," he said. "We've been through our hour of that, and there were a lot of happy people leaving the building with big stacks of vinyl in their hands."

The event also had an artist doing live paintings, raffles with prizes from the Grooveyard in Penticton and Milkcrate Records in Kelowna as well as a "Winyl auction" which paired wines with records.



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