Record Store Day 2012 – Overview

As someone who helped organise the very first Record Store Day much has certainly changed and I’ll comment on that another time. Here however is a brief summary of how things went down this year.

The run up to RSD was busier than normal helped by the Spiritualized album and the week after RSD was busier than normal helped by the Jack White album. We tend to find RSD sales are very much confined to the day itself. 

Sales of RSD stock were up again this year which was not a surprise given the number of titles but overall sales were slightly down on last year as disappointingly despite a fantastic selection of vinyl and CDs non RSD stock sales were down considerably.

Some customers boycotted RSD (titles not really limited and prices too high) but came in before or after the day to support the shop which is much appreciated. 

One customer who wanted Belle & Sebastian, Human Don’t Be Angry, McLusky and Animal Collective but couldn’t make it in too early luckily did get all he wanted but his prediction that most titles would be available soon from the band or label proved true sooner than even he expected with all available except the Animal Collective by the Monday only fuelling the cynicism of many customers as to the “exclusivity” of RSD product.

We had a ridiculous number of phone calls  looking for Bowie then Abba then Noel Gallagher and many people seemed to think they could just email in a list and then collect it so I was worried on the day these folk would turn up but thankfully there were no such problems.

This year’s customers were definitely mainly “new” people in for the day but at least the weren’t like many last year who had just come in for whatever their band’s fan club had told them about. 

In-stores were brilliant. Many thanks to Dan and Gordon and of course to Red Dog for the PA. They were very well attended indeed. 

Most people seemed to have missed the message of supporting record stores and thought RSD was more to do with collectable records and vinyl which given the media coverage was understandable. 

Thanks to Hula, Analogue and James-Morrow the day had a more celebratory feel than just selling limited vinyl and of course The Bow Bar did their bit selling RSD beer. Thanks again to them all.

The Electric Circus aftershow party went really well and as with the in-store clips the clips of the cover versions have proved particularly popular. Thanks to all those who helped with the recording, the Electric Circus who as usual made things nice and easy, Stu Lewis for making sure everything went to plan on the day and of course The Last Battle, Emily Scott and Star Wheel Press for playing. All the artists that played on the day have had a significant increase in sales since.

This year with every man and his dog trying to jump on the RSD bandwagon I hope customers went away with the feeling that we had made a day of it and not just tried to sell them overpriced and rather dubious “exclusives”. Thanks to everybody who got in touch to say how much they enjoyed the day. Your comments were very much appreciated.