When the time came to begin planning the trip to the Netherlands last month in earnest, I knew that chasinvictoria was also coming to Europe to see the Nit50 concert in Amsterdam. Being record shopping comrades for the last 46 years, he first broached the topic of Amsterdam record stores. That brought to mind those years of poring over Goldmine magazine that we both did throughout the 90s with a highlighter. When I think of cities like Utrecht, Netherlands, I can vividly recall seeing the multi page ads in Goldmine touting THE WORLD’S LARGEST RECORD SHOWS, so I thought to look and see what might be concurrent with our visit.

As it turned out, there was the Record Planet 58th Mega Record + CD Fair happening the next day following the Nits concert, in ’s-Hertogenbosch on the 14th. Actually it started on the 13th, but that was the night of the Nits show. There was no way to think about the first day, but the second day was a 90 minute train ride away. I asked Gavin who was attending the Nits show with us if he’d have an interest with traveling with us to ‘s-Hertogenbosch to see the world’s largest record + CD fair but he demurred as he was visiting with his cousin and her husband the next day.

My first thought was that it sounded like an enjoyable time and that I should blow off the record fair and we could all spend Sunday in Amsterdam with them, but after a week or so, I thought that I should write about this for the blog. I talked myself into going. When would I ever get this chance again?

So the morning after the late night of the Nits show, where we all stayed out in Amsterdam looking for a suitable place for beverages and after concert chat until midnight or so, I was looking at getting the sprinter train from Krommenie to ‘s-Hertogenbosch and meeting chasinvictoria at the stop at Zaandam around 8:15 to get to the show shortly after it opened at 10:00 a.m. with the show closing at 5:00 p.m. that day.

In the time before hand, I tried to make a want list cobbled together from the many “want list” postings of the last 5-6 years here at PPM. I got as far as this in the days before:

• A Certain Ratio – Arclight CD
• Bryan Ferry – Mamouna/Horoscope box CD.
• Klark Kent – 2xCD
• ALTERED images – Bite 2xCD
• MIDGE URE – the gift box 4xCD
• Malcolm McLaren – Duck Rock CD
• Landscape – Landscape-go-go Box CD
• xPpropaganda- x strangely LP
• Blondie: 3xCD box of rarities
• Rich Kids – Ghosts Of Princes In Towers CD
• Sparks – Drip Drip CD
• OMD – DazzleShips DLX RM CD
• The Lilac Time – Return To Us CD
• The Lilac Time – dance till the stars come down CD
• Andrew poppy – ark hive of a live 4xCD box
• Robert Palmer – some people can do what they like C.D. Island
• Robert Palmer Island Double Fun CD
• Robert Palmer – Maybe it’s live CD
• Modern eon – Fiction Tales CD
• Voice of the beehive – Let it Bee 2xCD
• Monsoon – Third Eye 2xCD
• Mari Wilson – The Neasden Queen Of Soul 3xCD
• Classix Noveaux – The Liberty Recordings 4xCD
• Carmel – Wild Country CD
• Blondie -against all odds 3xCD box
• Robert Fripp – God Save The Queen CD
• Robert Fripp – Let The Power Fall CD
• Jesse Rae CDs
• Prince: The Black Album
• Sparks dlx rm CDs
• Robert Fripp – Washington Square Church CD
• Associates covers ep
• Gina X Performance – Nice Mover/Voyeur 2xCD
• Electribe 101 – Electribal soul C.D.
• xPropaganda – the heart is strange 2xCD
• Molly Nilsson – Extreme CD
• Molly Nilsson – Europa CD
• Molly Nilsson – Zenith CD
• Molly Nilsson – imaginations CD
• Molly Nilsson – History CD
• Molly Nilsson – These things Take a time CD

Up front, I imagined that there would be a plethora of the CDs that I would have to buy as imports there for the taking. Including all of the DLX RM and boxed goods that I still had an interest in.

We got there after 10 and figured out how to get the fair shuttle from the train station to the event hall. The hall was a super large convention center. We entered and prepared our e-tickets for scanning. At this point I started to get a little excited. I hadn’t been to a large record show since the early 90s when attending the Tampa shows where I’d drop near $500 in those days of maximum earnings and minimum expenses. This was poised to make that look like chump change. When traveling to the three Amoeba Record stores in 2014, I’d budgeted $450 and wondered how much I might have to put back this day.

58TH MEGA RECORD + CD FAIR | ‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH

The entrance led to the hall where our tickets were scanned, then there was the doorway into the first main hall. We walked into Hall A and were confronted with a vast, aircraft hangar-like space with more dealer tables than I could properly estimate.

Actually, that’s an inadequate image to put across the size of this place. Let’s try this instead.

That’s more like it. And that was the first room only! One could enter the hallway at the middle of the right hand wall, enter the main stage room, which was larger than even the biggest record shows I’d attended in the past, and then enter into Hall B, which was only slightly smaller than the mind-stunning Hall A. Helpfully, the website had provided a dealer map that I only saw after the fact, but will share with readers now.

Okay, so we’ve established that, yes, this Record Planet Mega Record + CD Fair was in fact, the largest record fair on the planet. How would we get down to actually walking this monster?

Next: …Nitty Meets Gritty