Flying Out record store closing down

From Flying Out FB page:

"This is the hardest thing we’ve ever had to write, but unfortunately it’s goodbye from Flying Out.

Over the last few years, a pandemic, 3 festival cancellations, the effects of ongoing roadworks, the CRL construction and the continuing economic downturn has become an unpleasant, perfect storm. 

Flying Out has been a true labour of love, and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make it what it was – our F|O team (past and present), customers, suppliers, artists, and wider community. Your love and loyalty has been truly appreciated. What happens next is still being figured out - we will be in touch over the coming weeks. 

Please go out and support small locally owned businesses (especially Record Stores!), they are a labour of love from someone in your community and supporting them supports your neighbourhood.
Arohanui and thanks again,

Matthew Davis & Flying Out"

No word yet on what happens to anyone who had paid for preorders, or suppliers.

Flying Out opened their store on Pitt St just off K Rd back in April 2015, to coincide with Record Store Day. They had started a few years earlier as an online store spun out of Flying Nun, from an office in a funky old office building on Khyber Pass Rd, in Newmarket. 

They were previously co-owned by Matthew Davis and Ben Howe (Managing director of Flying Nun) - Howe departed in 2020. Flying Nun opened their own record store right round the corner from Flying Out in September 2023, competing for the same market, which likely affected FO.

It really sucks to see them close. They built such a great community around that place. Thats why record stores have always been important, they are meeting places, where we feel like we belong. 

So sad it's going. There's a lot of business closing down - RNZ reported that Hospitality business liquidations were up 49 percent year on year and Retail was up 37 percent.

ADDED K Rd venue Neck Of The Woods announced same day that they were closing down after 11 years, due to increasing debt and slow bar sales.

ADDED The same space was previously home to Pitt St Shavers, but back in 1957 it opened as a record store.  Audioculture says "The shop was called The Starlite Centre and was owned by three siblings, Tony, Shirley and George Katavich. The opening was attended by the men in the second image, who represented the record industry at the time in Auckland.

It seems not to have lasted that long but Tony, on the left, went on to a very high profile career as a leading gay businessman in Auckland with clubs, a magazine, the gay bookshop in ANZAC Avenue and a travel agency. He was also a strong voice arguing successfully for the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in the 1980s."