culture For Independent Video Store Day, the World Can Thank Toronto

The international celebration of indie video-rental stores, happening for the first time this Saturday, is the invention of a Toronto local.

When Blockbuster finally gave up on its Canadian operations after years of waning profits, it seemed like a blow to the very concept of walking to a store to rent a video.

The internet provides so many options—both legal and not-exactly-legal—for accessing movies and TV shows that chain rental stores now seem as irrelevant as telegraphy. They’re a means of disseminating data the world no longer needs.

Dan Hanna dislikes Blockbuster as much as anyone, but he’s not ready to cede control of video to the web forever. That’s why he created International Independent Video Store Day, which happens not only in Canada, but in at least three countries, for the first time on this Saturday, October 15.

“The whole video-rental market was not something that studios created, it’s not something that Blockbuster created,” said Hanna in a phone interview earlier this week. “It was private, enterprising individuals that first purchased video tapes and put them in stores to rent.”

Hanna’s hope is that the day will help remind the public that indie video stores offer something their corporate cousins never could.

At small video stores, he said, “you’re interacting first of all with human beings who earnestly and honestly have a vested interest in quality.”

Granted, he does have a vested interest. He’s the owner of Eyesore Cinema, on Queen Street West, a video-rental shop so independent that it doesn’t even open until 3 p.m. most days. He traces the origins of the video-store-day idea to an event that changed Toronto’s rental landscape: the Queen Street fire, in February 2008, that destroyed one of Suspect Video’s two locations. (The other, at Bathurst and Markham Streets, is still in business.)

Hanna used to work at Suspect on Queen Street. When it burned down, he said, “I was faced with a crossroads in my life of what to do next.”

And so, three years ago, he founded his own business. The space in which he chose to open Eyesore Cinema happened to be on the second storey of the same building where Rotate This, a record shop, has the ground-floor storefront. And that, strangely, was the genesis of Independent Video Store Day.

“They had Record Store Day,” he said. “And so I’m sitting upstairs going, huh, there seems to be a lot of fun action happening.”

In early 2010, he created a Facebook page called “Let’s declare an Independent Video Store Day” that quickly attracted video-store owners from all around the English-speaking world. The page’s first post was a kind of one-sentence manifesto:

In an ever-changing and tumultuous world, in a universe frought with a wealth of diverse entertainment delivery systems, there is a human heart that still beats at the core of the home video experience!

From there, the movement gradually gathered steam until, coordinating their efforts online, the store owners were able to appoint organizers in different geographical areas to spearhead local events and promotions. (Hanna is taking care of things in Ontario.)

Participating stores will be offering discounts on rentals and purchases, and some of them are holding events. Hanna estimates that 500 retailers in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. are involved to greater or lesser degrees. Nine stores in Toronto, including Eyesore, are among them.

What are Toronto’s indie video stores doing for Independent Video Store Day?

Eyesore Cinema will be waiving its $5 membership fee for new customers, for the entire day. They’ll also offer discounted premium memberships. (They’re normally $50.) There will also be some in-store performances and events, and discounts on items for sale.

Digital Convenience will be giving double loyalty points to customers, and there will be 25 per cent discounts on TV series rentals.

The Little Video Shop will have discounted rentals and a raffle for free rentals. They’re also holding an in-store event, but the details are secret for the time being.

Suspect Video will offer $1 off rentals and 25 per cent off used DVDs. Other merchandise will also be discounted, and there will be free goodies for kids.

The Film Buff doesn’t know what it’s doing yet but assured us that they will “figure something out on the fly.”

See the full list of the nine Toronto-area participating stores here.