BILLINGS — Among a culture accustomed to streaming and binging, one Billings business is offering a different kind of experience — one that comes with the familiar yellow and blue of a bygone video store era.
Sean Osborne, owner of Keep It Alive Antiques and Collectibles, has created a new retro-themed room inside his store, meticulously designed to resemble Blockbuster, the classic video rental shop.
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Lined with old clamshell cases and rows upon rows of VHS tapes, the room houses more than 2,000 VHS titles alongside other formats — including DVDs, blu-rays, and laserdiscs.
“To walk in here — it’s an instant 1992, early 2000s,” said Osborne.
Osborne estimates he has spent more than 200 hours designing the space.
“I really dive into attention to detail because I don’t wanna be ‘that thrift store.’ We’re not a thrift store,” said Osborne. “You’re able to buy a VCR, plus a couple movies for under 30 bucks, and that’s a good weekend.”
Much of the inventory consists of titles that are increasingly hard to find in today’s streaming libraries.
“Some of these titles are harder to find. They’re not on Amazon Prime, they’re not on Netflix or anything like that,” said Osborne.
For him, though, it is about more than just the tapes — it is about what those tapes represent.
“(Customers are) buying it because ‘my dad loved this movie.’ They’re buying it because ‘my little brother and I used to watch this and my parents didn’t know about it,’” said Osborne.
The recreated store is designed to offer that exact emotional pull — a chance to revisit a one's own memories when weekends were events.
“When I stand back and watch people with their reactions — that’s exactly why I’m in this business,” said Osborne. “Be a kid again, be a teenager, show your kids what you used to do on the weekends.”
Keep It Alive will be holding Free Comic Book Day events tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., including a signing with G.I. Joe Creator Larry Hamma.
