Video Shop Becomes Another Austin Casualty of Covid
- Natasha Day
- May 24, 2023
- 4 min read
By Natasha Day
AUSTIN –– Local Austin staple I Luv Video permanently shut its doors to the public in September 2020 after over thirty years in business.
The independently owned and operated video shop stood as a nostalgic part of old Austin according to its employees and loyal customers.
“It’s a huge change,” said long-time employee Ian Graham, “It’s like one of the last kind of things keeping Austin what it was.”
I Luv Video first closed its doors in March after Covid-19 limited the number of patrons in public spaces, but the official closing was announced on their social media in early September.
By selling, renting, and trading both classic and quirky VHS and DVD’s, I Luv Video has helped Austin maintain it’s “weird” reputation for decades as the self-proclaimed largest video library in the world.
“I figured we had at least three more years where there was going to be a bump in popularity and fluctuation in people's interest and stuff like that, you know, this place kind of relied on that,” said Graham. “Covid just took it out in the field and shot it.”
“The leisure and hospitality sector has been hit hard by the pandemic” said Danielle Trevino from the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Approximately 67,300 jobs in that group have been lost this year. Almost 34,000 of those jobs have been restored over the last few months but many businesses have still been forced to close.
“There’s a lot of places that are gone,” said Graham.
Local Austin event listing site Do512.com put together a catalog of all of the places that are permanently closed due to Covid-19. The lineup consisted of restaurants like Magnolia Cafe on Lake Austin Boulevard, Shady Grove, and Barracuda, a music venue on Seventh and Red River.
Vulcan Video was also on that list.
Comparable to I Luv Video, Vulcan Video closed its doors earlier this year as well. In April 2020 Vulcan Video went out of business after thirty-five years according to the Texas Monthly.com article “Vulcan Video is Dead, Long Live Vulcan Video” by Sean O’Neal.
Despite having worldwide success, both I Luv Video and Vulcan Video lasted longer than their mainstream counterpart, Blockbuster. In the 1990s and early 2000s Blockbuster dominated the video renting industry.
As reported in the Business Insider.com article, “The Rise and Fall of Blockbuster” by Frank Olito, there were 800 Blockbusters across the U.S.
By the mid 90s there were thousands of stores globally.
The beginning of the end for Blockbuster happened in the late 90s when Netflix was founded. Blockbuster decided not to buy it and now Netflix is one of the leading streaming services. Netflix provided a sense of convenience to customers who could get movies delivered to their homes and eventually online.
Graham knew that the demise of I Luv Video was on the horizon.
“We knew it was going to happen because of the death of video,” said Graham. Netflix, Hulu, and a myriad of other streaming services have altered the way we watch TV and movies for years now.
Although times have changed, frequent customers reminisce about what they admired about I Luv Video throughout the years.
“It's weird because I have a DVD player and a VHS player and a lot of the movies I want to watch aren’t on streaming services, like half of the stuff here isn’t” said Adam Ingram, regular I Luv Video customer.
Video stores like the ones in Austin relied on their clientele's unique and uncommon interest in films.
“I like this place because when I first started coming here the people that worked here like Ian
would help me pick out movies and so I started going through the directors and you know, just, that was the first time I had ever done that,” said Ingram.
“I love the music documentaries, there’s this little cult section. A lot of these movies are things that I feel like you just, you’re not going to find on the internet,” said Olivia Garner, long-time customer. “You walk into this store and you stumble upon them and that’s a part of the magic.”
When asked about what will happen to the assortment of movies, Graham is hopeful but realistic.
“This isn’t normal storage...I see the problems with it,” said Graham when describing his boss’ wishes that someone purchases the whole collection.
“The owner is hoping that someone is going to buy it and maybe pass the torch, hopefully here in Austin, I hope that happens.”
Links to tweets : https://twitter.com/natasha_jd/status/1312224175684300800?s=20
SOURCES
1.Ian Graham, long time “I Luv Video” employee
2. Adam Ingram, customer
3. Olivia Garner, customer
4. Danielle Trevino, Austin Chamber of Commerce, VP Marketing and Communications
5. Texas Monthly article “Vulcan Video is Dead, Long Live Vulcan Video” by Sean O’Neal written April 2020 https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/vulcan-video-shutdown-austin/
6. BusinessInsider.com article “The Rise and Fall of Blockbuster” by Frank Olito written August 2020
7. Do512 article “RIP Austin: All the Places Permanently Closed Due to Covid-19”
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