Physical Media Fair
Village of Industry & Art
320 S Broad St.
Philadelphia
August 1, 2026
I think it's fair to say we're firmly in the age of subscription media. Want to listen to a song, watch a movie, read a book? Chances are there’s an app that provides a near endless catalog of choices at your fingertips. Or at least that’s what these services would like you to believe. In reality, leaving the fate of your media consumption in the hands of streaming companies can have mixed results at best. More than once I’ve found myself mid-season of a show only for it to be taken down. You can turn on your gaming console hoping to advance a few levels and find it unavailable thanks to losing licensing rights. We don’t truly own anything; at best we’re just renting until the powers that be decide to revoke your access. The only way that we can truly ensure that what media we experience is also available to us and future generations is to literally hold it in your hands. Here's what I was able to get my hands on at Lightbox's "Physical Media Fair."
Hands down, the form of media with the widest variety of options at the fair was, unsurprisingly, music. Almost every vendor had crates of vinyl, cassettes, and CDs waiting to be explored. While I did miss out on a Giorgio Mordor album that a person combing the crates next to me found first, I made up for it with records from Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, bolero group Los Churumbeles de España, and a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town with its original inserts. After inheriting an alarm clock with a tape player, I’ve been growing my cassette collection as well, which I expanded even more at the fair by buying a copy of Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love and Selena’s live album. Outside of the Bruce albums, I’ve never listened to any of the other selections I made — but taking a risk on the unfamiliar is my favorite part of the process of finding new music.
There were plenty of VHS tapes on hand, and I definitely still have my VHS player stashed away somewhere in my parent’s basement, but in the interest of saving space I only made moves on DVDs. I had another FOMO moment when the person browsing next to me found a copy of Empire Records, but all hope wasn’t lost because I came away with a director's cut version of Blade Runner from that very same bin. At another booth I was able to find a copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas, which reminded me of another perk of finding movies irl as opposed to navigating a streaming app: saving something for later. It’s the first day of August, but I bought myself a treat for future-me to enjoy in a few months. Yes, I got the instant gratification of procuring a movie I wanted, but the delayed satisfaction I’ll get in December when I’m looking for a cozy holiday movie to watch with my loved ones and I see that on my shelf will be so much sweeter. The final DVD that made its way into my possession was a compilation by Orange Crate Magazine of music videos from independent Philly artists, something that’s absolutely in my wheelhouse of interests but I probably wouldn’t have known about had I not gone out into the real world and stumbled upon it by chance.
My resolution for the latter half of the year is to read more regularly, so of course I made a point to add some books to my haul. Teenage-me was very pleased to find one of my favorite graphic novels and Batman stories: Hush. I was drawn to three separate pieces of print from different vendors with a shared theme – a zine about journalists in cinema from local film buff blog, "Movie Jawn," an issue of the academic film journal, "Wide Angle," and In The Time of Kiarostami, a collection of writings by film critic Godfrey Cheshire on Iranian film-making. The book I was most excited about finding was a printed version of the manifesto of the Attica Liberation Faction during the infamous Attica prison uprising of 1971. Having tangible documents of history like this is crucial if we wish to pass on knowledge of rebellion and resistance to future generations in an age of AI aggregation and misinformation. With many more books, movies, and collectables to explore, I tapped out after hitting my $100 budget but every dollar felt well-spent.
Find out more about events from Lightbox here.
