Vinyl Record Pressing Plants The raise of the Pheonix and back to ashes?

[mossboss]

Well here we are after a few booming years, the proliferation of new pressing plants, plus the increased capacity of prior to the boom existing plants, we are now seeing a number of plants shutting down or in liquidation/bankruptcy
Also there are record pressing machines as well as auxiliary equipment offered for sale, most likely the end result of failures or never even starting up
Plant in Dublin gone another in France one in FL USA a long established plant in Germany stopped pressing
Plants in Europe are down to around 30-40% of output capacity there are new machines delivered but never installed offered at heavy discounts besides new machines already delivered and installed sitting idle
It seems that there is a general feeling of doom and gloom all around
In the last 6-7 years production capacity tripled with the availability of new pressing equipment new plants established older plants expanded, all where busy now it seems that just like turning the light dimmer right down not quite off orders are drying up
Is this a sign of the demise of the game once again?
Has the medium had is day once again for the buying public?
We all know CD killed it originally than the DJ's got it up again, some time later than Cerato killed again, the Hipsters started getting into it and gave it another kick start but there was never any big expansion in the industry as we have seen lately
It is certainly a sign that things are not going well considering not so long ago a delivery time of some months was quoted almost across the globe, whereby in recent times or since mid to late last year we have seen a major drop in orders
Major plants which did not bother with orders of 300-500 in the recent past are now accepting them and we now see plants closing their doors
Did the industry enjoyed the Largess of governments globally during covid19 when people had no where to spend money so it went to vinyl records?
Has the medium lost its appeal?
Is there lack of disposable income?
What do others in the game think?
It would be interesting to have others chipping in here with their views on the current market as well as any suggestions to the currently woes experienced across the industry
Best
C

[duomo]

I don’t think it’s a customer problem because vinyl sales are still growing.. slower but still ok. It’s more a problem of the huge over capacity built up the last years.

[mossboss]

I hear you and most likely I agree with you up to a point, given that not so long ago there was about 45 plants worldwide whereby the number has risen to well over 100 in recent times,
Having said that it does not explain the fact that all plants were busy for at least a year most likely 18 months with the added capacity
so it may be something else which is the reason for my post
Best
C

[piaptk]

I think a large part of the "new plants closing down" is because "vinyl fans" and not "Manufacturing experts" unknowingly made unrealistic business plans and got investors who expected far more than they ended up getting. Then these plants had problem after problem due to lack of support, lack of knowledge, lack of resources, etc along with rising raw material and utility costs and the investors pulled the plug.

From what I've seen, it seems like vinyl has a larger customer base, but one that purchases less qty than the record collectors that propped up vinyl during the lean years (Punk, indie, house, reggae, hip hop, etc). They are selling a lot of Taylor Swift records, but those buyers are only buying a few a year. In the late 90s, early 2000s, I used to buy at least a hundred new records in a year along with huge stacks of thrifted and used records.

[untitledthe]

I dont think all plants close due liquidation/bankruptcy, some people are just 'done' with it. Not everybody keeps doing the same for tens of years esspecially smaller plants where it is experienced as very demanding. You have done it for years, things start to slow down, its getting hard to put in the same effort, you can still sell the equipement for a good price to a party that still wants to start up; great oppertunity to change your life. Start with a vacation and have some budget to start/do something else in life.

Im just a outsider, but its sorry to hear plants are only doing 40% of its output capacity, i do not hope the calculations where aimed to high when the sky was the limit and the big investments of new presses, aux. equipement, building expansion, installation and all the other costs i dont even know of where done. I see some equipement being offered for sale here literal and there occasionaly, any more equipement broker/traders that got small parts to entire parts of plants for sale? Allways interested, pm welcome.

Its a shame to hear of brand new equipement not even getting installed as there is no work for it. Some expensions where also thát big, the numbers where probably right for that moment but did it really need the size of big plants doubled up? Grab the profits while its there? Or get rid of the older machinery. The promotion/advertisement by plants is getting stronger, turnaround times of 30 days has been offerend for months, lower minimal order - its all a sign indeed. But is it a sign of over capacity, a slighty decrease of orders - thats now under a magnifying glass as it rumbles here and there - or probably both?

Records are now established as fine dining in a restaurant, instead of fast food with no finesse. Thats something people allways will get back to sooner or later. Perhaps yes a luxery that not all people allways can do, but really appreciated when they do. I dont know how things are in other parts of the world but life has made a big jump in costs of living, the wages increased aswell but did it to the same point? Hard to buy records if you need fuel for the car, when those gasmonkeys just do what they like. The price for a record is out there too. 100 euro gets you 2, perhaps 3 records in a brick and mortar shop, with double albums 50 euro. Even some new, widely available records (double album) being offerend for 80 euro, they can keep them in my opinion. Perhaps that was just a incident that was noticed, about time to do another round in the shop i guess!

The medium does not lost it appeal, i dont believe it, you still see it in very random advertisement of totally different products, where a record is put on to obtain a atmosphere of relaxation and sit back, generally. But i must admit i saw cd popping up occasionally as something cool and retro, just how the record revival started, so everybody get those cd lines out of storage.. The whole story of 15 years ago starts again!

[armshouse]

When demand spiked and turn times grew to over a year there was a frenzy of ordering as labels tried to keep their biggest sellers in stock. People started ordering much larger quantities of re orders and I think this was a big part of what created the bottleneck we all saw in 2021 - 2022. No one needs to do this anymore as records can be made almost immediately. This is not the only factor, but certainly an important one. My read on where we are at now is that sales of records are still very strong possibly still growing slowly or staying flat. Even if sales are decreasing slightly we are at a much higher level than we were five year ago. What is causing this perceived global slowdown is massive over capacity. All the machines ordered at the height of demand are all coming online at once. I am less tuned in to the European market, but here in the US there are new plants opening up seemingly weekly with many more to come. Adding insult to injury all of these new plants are opening with brand new machines, deposits paid long ago while other new machines sit idle or even in crates uninstalled at existing plants as Moss was mentioning above.