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Love Record Stores Day has delivered a big boost to music retailers in the UK after taking over £1 million in revenue.
Taking place online on Saturday (June 20), Love Record Stores Day was held to replace the rearranged Record Store Day 2020 — which has been postponed twice this year due to the coronavirus outbreak — as the latter will now be split over three dates (August 29, September 26 and October 24).
Its aim was to get music-lovers to support their favourite independent record stores by shopping online, with an array of exclusive and limited edition vinyl releases being made available by a variety of artists and labels.
Eighty-three new and reissued vinyl releases were made available, including releases from the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, Caribou, Belle and Sebastian, Beach House, Robyn, New Order, Jungle and John Grant.
According to campaign organisers (via Music Week), the event resulted in over £1 million made in sales after almost 50,000 units were shipped to stores.
A survey of participating retailers discovered that the vast majority of this stock was sold out within one hour of being made available online.
“We had really high hopes for our #LoveRecordStores event, but things exceeded even our most ambitious expectations,” Jason Rackham, MD of PIAS and one of the organisers behind the campaign, said. “The feedback we’ve had from participating record stores has been phenomenal with reports of some doing a month’s business in less than an hour on Saturday.”
He continued: “We always hoped this event would give record stores a boost and it’s definitely done that. Our ‘virtual instore’ was also amazing, with huge engagement from music fans over the 24-hour period. We have been stunned by the generosity and commitment of artists and the wider music community, which was hugely enjoyed by music fans this weekend.”
Last month, Tim Burgess was named as the ambassador of Love Record Stores Day.
“The idea of what we would do without physical record shops has been a question we’ve asked in the past, but now it’s looking more possible than ever and we need to do whatever we can to help,” Burgess said in a statement.
“Record shops are like drop in therapy centres for me – there’s a calmness, a familiarity and a sense of belonging that I don’t feel in many other places. A chance to talk with like-minded people – and maybe be reminded that you didn’t know as much about music as you thought you did. Like an animal threatened with extinction, we need to organise ourselves to try and stop it happening.
“Record shops have been good to me since I first ever spent time on my own – they’ve been good to us, let’s do what we can to help.”
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