Op Shop Tours Australia

Yes, this is actually theatre related... You'll have to read this to find out why This morning I was privileged to attend Op Shop Tours Australia on their first ever monthly tour in Melbourne. What’s an op shop tour? Well, I’ve been explaining that a lot to people and I’ve come up with a good brief sentence: it’s like a shopping tour (where you go on a bus and visit discount stores), only to op shops. Now, I say ‘their first’, and there are two things wrong with that sentence. First is that ‘their’ is really ‘her’, because despite the complexity of organisation of running such a tour, this has been set up by one woman, Joanne O’Callaghan. It’s not done by some huge tourism company, doesn’t have contacts with every bus company in Melbourne, and isn’t backed by council funding or anything like that (at least, as far as I know). Disclaimer: I am friends with the woman who runs the tours. I am also her web admin, and supported her show last year in the Melb. Fringe Festival with a small financial grant. The second thing wrong with the sentence is that while it’s the first monthly tour, it’s by no means the first ever tour. What makes this somewhat of a theatre review is that O’Callaghan has been running these tours successfully during the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival (she’s just returned from the Adelaide Fringe); and during these festivals the tours also include on-board (on-bus?) comedians who keep us occupied until we get to the next shop. So it’s clear as to what these tours entail, I’ll make my review more of a ’story’, than a review, going in chronological order. The tour starts outside Bourke St’s Salvo’s (in the city centre of Melbourne), quite in/conveniently located outside an op shop which unless you get there early, you won’t have an opportunity (ahaha) to go into. It also starts at 9am on a Saturday… I kind of thought the tours would run later in the day, and didn’t want to get up early, but hey, it ended up being worth it! The bus arrives at 9.30am, and once the door list is checked, we get on board. O’Callaghan quickly makes friends with the bus driver, and for so early on a Sat morning, she’s bright and cheerful - and loud - and soon has the driver and all of us feeling like a group. There was about 15 of us, sitting luxuriously in something like a 48 seat bus (she overestimated, but actually it was quite nice being on a big bus), all female except for one guy and the driver. There were several mother-daughter pairs, a couple of groups of friends, and singles like me. The bus stops off at four different and very large op shops, and on the way to the first one, O’Callaghan makes some introductory remarks, tells us about the itinerary (she plans each tour herself from start to finish for every city that she does them in), and gets us warmed up to op shopping. She discusses tips to finding clothes that fit, asks people to share their own tips, invites people to share ‘bargain hunting’ stories (such as her finding $50 in a coat pocket when she had spent her last $40 on buying the coat itself)… She gets us to share what we’re hunting for on the tour so we can keep a keen eye out for items for other people, and makes a joke that we should all buy shoes for the women on the tour who have upcoming birthdays. Everything is quite relaxed, but also inviting, a good mix where a bunch of strangers are lumped together to go do what’s normally considered a quite personal thing. We get to our first stop - most of the stops were Salvation Army stores - a rather large place. It must also be said that O’Callaghan picks not only the best shops for their quality of items (many places had stuff that was brand new, looked brand new, or reasonably used), but also the prices. The bus parks right outside the door at every stop. We were told to meet back at the bus in 45 minutes. I thought to myself, "45 minutes, that’s ages!" (Perhaps I’m an unusually fast shopper), but it went really quickly. I actually hadn’t planned on buying anything, trying not to spend money before I head to the US in July. I figured though that this was a good chance to hunt for one of my favourite buys in op shops: odd stuff to be used for puppetry. Last time I went into an op shop I found 6 ping pong balls of rainbow colours, ideal for a rather kooky puppet character. So when I went to the first op shop, I headed straight for the toys. :) I ended up buying a handbag and a black skirt for about $12 total, both things I needed to replace a fading and falling apart wardrobe. I’ll make the rest of this shorter, since you probably don’t want to read about every single thing that happened. On the bus, O’Callaghan gave us more tips: pointing out other op shops that we couldn’t stop at, but she recommended, including a place that does six-monthly designer discounts; telling us about the Salvo’s weekly ‘colour’, by which they give discounts (10%) each week according to the colour of the price tag; etc. She’s a font of op shop info, having quite specific discussions with some people on the trip who came from other towns on the whereabouts of good op shops… she knows her stuff! Best of all, included in the trip she’s managed to work with the shops we tour to, so some of them even offered discounts just for us, and a cafe near our second stop had a deal on sandwiches and coffee just for us too. After each stop, whilst on the bus to the next destination, O’Callaghan would invite us to hold up our bargains, and share what we got. O’Callaghan certainly makes a great tour operator, and for me, someone who’s normally quite shy amongst strangers, I felt at ease and quite ready to get involved. As for the other stops, I ended up buying quite a few things, although I didn’t spend more than $30. The second stop I came across two wonderful toys to turn into puppets (a purple stuffed dragon and a teddy bear - and we all know how much I love my teddies ;)), plus a piece of blue chiffon that cost 50 cents. At that same stop there was another shop a block down the road, but I didn’t find anything interesting there. The third stop I found yet another toy - a dog this time - and a brand new wallet for $4. I really really needed a new wallet, so I made an effort to find a good one. At the fourth stop, I found nothing, but there was another shop that O’Callaghan recommended a block or so away and I headed there. I managed to find a hat similar to one I had as a kid. This is a ‘magic’ hat, in that the wire brim can be twisted and folded into a smaller circle (kind of like a squashed figure eight). This fascinated me as a kid, and fascinates me now as a builder, and always wondered how I could use the wire for some artistic purpose. I lost the hat, but now with this one perhaps I can figure something out. It was quite funny - all the others were coming out of the stores with clothes and books and household items. I came out with toys! At the end of the tour, we are returned to where we started. Some people walked away with a bag full of stuff; some walked away with several bags worth. O’Callaghan did mention that if we needed to take something large (like drawers, etc.), we could make use of the bus’ storage compartment; with the proviso of course that we had to figure out how to get the object/s from the bus drop-off to our homes. Now, I’ve never been on the bigger shopping tours before, but have heard about the premise. Personally, I think this is much better. The big tours charge several hundred dollars a person just to get on the bus (items you buy obviously aren’t included in the price), and then take you around to the ‘discount outlet’ warehouses of big name brands. You can end up buying normal, everyday clothes and other items for much less; but this is so much more interesting. You never know what you’re going to find in an op shop, and you’re often going to find something rather unique, kitch or just plain odd. One girl bought purple velvet pants for example. More to the point: you can save a lot more money going on one of these tours than you can on the bigger ones. Op Shop Tours Australia costs about $30 per person, and from what I could see, the money is only going to basic overheads, like O’Callaghan’s time, the hire of bus and driver, and general admin/marketing costs. Given that you could spend about $40 on a whole bunch of items at an op shop, that’s at least half or even less, than what you would pay for a big shopping tour to discount warehouses. Ultimately, the four hours I spent on the tour was friendly, fun, full of bargains, and definitely something I’d do again. In fact, my mum was so impressed with my shopping (both quality of items and cost) that we’re planning on attending the next one, during the Melbourne Comedy Festival. The only downside for me during the day was that traffic was horrible - going through city centre during Sat afternoon on a Grand Prix weekend - and a number of our stops were cut shorter because of it. However, the ride itself wasn’t uncomfortable, and we were all chatting away; during the Festival, the tour will certainly overcome that problem, with stand-up comedians on board to keep us interested. In fact, I’m keen to get a whole group of people along; going alone was good, but going in groups is better! Don’t forget, Op Shop Tours Australia runs every month in Melbourne, as well as having shows during the upcoming Melbourne Comedy Festival in April, and in the Adelaide Fringe. See the above website for dates and bookings.