The Pickle Factory announces new monthly community-focused vinyl record fair

East London venue The Pickle Factory, along with sister venue Canvas, has announced a new community-focused second hand vinyl record fair, which will take place on the first Saturday of every month.

It will take place across all three spaces of the venues, with the record fair taking place in Canvas, a day party in The Pickle Factory and food & drinks in the cocktail bar.

The first edition will run on April 8, with House Of Dog Records, between Leeds and Manchester’s shop-on-a-boat Rubber Ducky Records, Piers Harrison & Toby Tobias, London’s Bizarre Trax & Loose, and book & zine rave culture seller 20K and a dead sheep setting up stalls in Canvas.

Mother Earth, Bizarre Trax DJs and Loose DJs will helm the booth for the first day party.

Read this next: Pickle factory set to relaunch in collaboration with GALA Festival

There will also be a specially created food & drinks programme taking place in the venue’s Cocktail Bar, which will be provided by East London favourites Dom’s Subs, TwoTribes, Djuce and Behind This Wall.

Tickets stand at £4 for advanced sale, and £5 on the door, with £1 from each ticket being donated to Hackney Night Shelter.

Toby Wareham, The Pickle Factory’s creative director and booker told Mixmag that the main focus of the new vinyl fair is to give back to the venue's community. He said: “The idea came about when I was round my friend Tom’s house, who sells records on Discogs, and we were postulating about how London, for such a big city with so many record shops, still can be a hard place to [find] second hand records, which are the kind of records we like to play ourselves.

Read this next: A new club called Canvas is opening in London next month

“And second hand fairs are all the rage in East London, but why hasn’t someone taken on a version of that for record geeks like us?” he continued.

“It’s grown into this monthly hangout that has record sellers in one room, this lovely food and drinks programme with local businesses and this day party running in The Pickle Factory.

“I guess ultimately what lies underneath it is really about our local community – it brings together crowds and DJs and promoters and all these people that we’ve organically built connections with over the past eight years.

“Because it is such a community-based event, it was only right to involve the Hackney Night Shelter. As someone who used to live in Hackney it breaks my heart to see the homelessness epidemic – we’re going to give a quid from every ticket and on the door take, which obviously isn’t huge but we’re aiming to have between 400 and 500 people through the venue each month, which would be a nice contribution.”

For tickets to the inaugral record fair click here.

Isaac Muk is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter