How to share your old VHS tapes with friends

What’s better than watching your old VHS tapes alone? Watching movies with your friends. Cinemas, pubs, restaurants, and other social entertainment outlets are a testament to the innate human need to engage in a fun activity with friends and family. There’s just something special about sharing moments with your buddies.

Old VHS tapes carry an air of nostalgia that you cannot really get by watching the same film on DVD, USB, or a streaming service. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make an effort to convert your old tapes from VHS to digital. If nothing else, conversion preserves the content and gives you the ability to watch them on multiple devices.

Either way, here are some tips on how you can be the VHS tapes hero your friends didn’t know they needed.

1. Choose the Movies

This seems quite basic but is actually important. You have limited time with your friends, so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to go through your entire stack of old VHS movies in one sitting. Depending on how long you intend your movie weekend or night to run, you can pick several films that should reasonably cover the time window.

Look for movies that have a high likelihood of captivating everyone in attendance. There’s no harm in circulating a list of movies to your friends so as to gauge the ones eliciting the most interest. This won’t always work though and could inadvertently ruin the element of surprise that makes movie nights so exciting. Keep an open mind.

2. Have Non-Screen Movie-Related Fun

The VCR may be the center of attention on VHS movie night, but it doesn’t mean everything you do has to be fixated on the screen. You can make things more fun by coming up with unique games or developing an impressive set of old VHS movie trivia. An open session where everyone gets a chance to share something funny or memorable that happened to them while at the movies would be great too.

However, though, you should not force these activities. Perhaps your friends are only interested in watching the old VHS movies. Allow the chips to fall where they may.

3. Get Enough Seating

The only thing worse than an underwhelming VHS movie is having to watch it in an uncomfortable sitting position. You’ve invited your friends to come over. Make sure you have adequate and comfortable seating ready for each of them.

Get some chairs, but don’t be afraid to think out of the box by throwing in decorative ottomans or half a dozen floor pillows. Don’t forget to leave adequate space between seating. Cuddling shouldn’t be something people are forced into due to a lack of space.

4. Snacks

If you are going to go big on anything during VHS movie night, it’s the snacks. Snacking is just so embedded in cinema culture that people will feel something is off if they are watching movies without eating anything.

But not just any snacks will do. For maximum impact, prepare snacks that complement the movie theme. You’d probably want to order pizza if a film you’ll watch revolves around the goings-on in a pizzeria. If you find it hard to match snacks to the movie, go traditional. Popcorn and finger foods are a great default choice.

5. Drinks

Drinks provide a wide range of possibilities, whether alcoholic or non-alcoholic. Wine is an excellent match for nearly every VHS film. Still, it’s important that you make available one or more festive non-alcoholic beverages for your teetotaler friends or those who are just not in the mood for alcohol that day.

Start planning VHS movie weekend or night today and make memories you and your friends will cherish for a lifetime.