Fame Music (4)

Dutch record store, located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. On 21 November 1990, Fame Music was opened in the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam as the flagship store of the Free Record Shop holding. It was the biggest entertainment store in the Benelux. For a short period a second store was located in Brussels, Belgium. Also, the entertainment departments of department store De Bijenkorf were operated under the name Fame. Because of the declining sales and the high costs of a store in Amsterdam's main shopping street, the store was closed on 29 January 2012. Initially it was announced that this would be the end of Fame, however due to a strong lobby of employees and customers, an alternative solution was sought. On 24 February 2012 the store was reopened in shopping center Magna Plaza, near the original location. The new store was 600 m², about one third of the original size, and was renamed to Fame Plaza. In May 2013 the Free Record Shop holding went bankrupt, and Fame Plaza had to close again on 30 June 2013. Store management wanted to continue the store, and bought the remainders. As a result, the store was reopened again in Magna Plaza on 9 August 2013. Store management tried different ideas to increase sales. On some of the old locations of the Free Record Store chain, Fame popup stores appeared. After a while this experiment was ended and all popup stores were closed again. On 5 June 2015, the main store in Amsterdam was closed as well because of financial issues and went bankrupt once more. In July 2015 Media Markt bought the remainders of Fame Plaza. Since October 2015, Fame is located in the basement of the Media Markt in the center of Amsterdam. With approx. 700 m² they still claim to have the largest collection of CDs, DVDs and vinyl in the Netherlands.