Manufacturing records: from vinyl to compact disc
Festival Records manufactured vinyl discs in Sydney for 40 years. At the height of production in the 1980s Festival's factory was buzzing with 26 record presses pumping out 25 000 records per day. In addition there was a cassette duplicating plant, an art department, a printing department for album covers, plus a huge warehouse for packing and distribution. When compact discs became more popular than vinyl records, Festival Records ceased manufacturing. The last vinyl disc was made at Festival's Pyrmont factory in 1992. Today Festival’s compact discs are made at Summit Technology in Sydney. This section showed how vinyl records and compact discs are made.
Images left to right: Pressing vinyl, courtesy Festival Mushroom Records; collage of discs, courtesy Festival Mushroom Records; Record manufacturing, Jim White collection