Employee profile
What was the name of your video store?
Castle Hobby and Video
Where was the store located?
Bluefield, West Virginia (United States)
When did you start working at this store?
1986
In your own words, how did you get started working in video retail? What
led you to choose the video industry, and this store in particular?
The store started as a game shop (Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, etc...) and slowly switched to predominantly, and finally completely video. I just followed along.
Describe your store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
Pretty much a typical video store. racks lined both walls with an island in the center of the floor. At the very rear of the store, a door separated Adult titles from the regular stock.
What were your customers like? What particularly memorable customers or events do you remember?
Bluefield's primarily a blue collar community, even more so at the time, and so was most of the clientele. Most were just tired workers who didn't want to watch reruns again. Of course there were also the typical teenagers looking for some T&A.
What was your boss like? How did he or she divide the work in the store?
Pretty good fellow, easygoing for the most part. He had final say in ordering and such, but listened to his staff's suggestions. Had a very strict opinion of how adult titles should be chosen, handled and rented. Titles were very tame by current standards, especially where "kinky" sex was concerned, and even if a renter was over 18 but lived at home, required parental permission.
What video formats did your store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
VHS primarily, though we did carry some Beta in the early days. Laserdisc never really caught on in our area.
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(children's videos or X-rated tapes, for example) did you rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in your store, and how important were they to the business?
Children's titles, horror and adult, followed by sci-fi, action and westerns made up our primary income.
What other services/products did you offer besides the rental or sale of
programs? Did this change over time?
Machine cleaning, tape repair, some copying of personal (home movie) videos. Services dropped back as traffic increased.
Did you ever rent VCRs or other hardware to your customers? If so,
how important were hardware rentals to the business?
VCRs, mostly as a courtesy. Eventually decided they weren't worth the trouble to maintain.
During the period that you worked at the store, what changes did you see take place?
Beta functionally died. Sell-through video became much more common.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
No. Declared bankruptcy after a fire (insufficient insurance to rebuild).