Record Store Day is fast approaching – if you didn’t know by now it’s on Saturday 13th April.
Please read the below article in full before calling us with questions, as it will answer almost anything we can think of!
This year marks our fifth RSD, and after the success of all the previous ones, we intend to run things the same way we have done the past few years. If you’ve been with us on Record Store Day before, we look forward to welcoming you back. If not, this is how it works…
"How do I make sure I get the records I want?" Record Store Day is truly a day when all record collectors are created equal; there’s no reserving, no pre-ordering, no products “going to the highest bidder” and definitely no pushing or shoving. The only thing you can do is show up as early as you can on Saturday 13th April - and we do mean early, customers have previously started queuing at 11:30pm the night before to get their hands on the records they wanted! You may have seen that we were asking customers to send us their "wish lists" so that we could attempt to order as accurately as possible, though all orders have now been placed and we're no longer able to amend them (so no more wish lists, please).
"When do you open?" Records stores across the country are banned from making any sales before 8am. In most cases this would mean hours and hours of queuing up outside in the freezing cold, squatting uncomfortably on the pavement, and maybe spilling a thermos of coffee on your lap to keep warm (if you’re lucky!) However, we open the doors to our café at 6am, and invite everyone in for a bacon roll, all the tea and coffee you can drink, and a warm & comfy place to sit and count down the last couple of hours before those limited edition records go on sale at 8am. Over the past few years we’ve even welcomed in a table of regulars who manage to consume a vast amount of Prosecco before the record emporium even opens… we’re happy to cater to those who really like to celebrate the day in style!
"What time should I start queuing?" Of course you’re welcome to start queuing outside the shop as early as you want: truly dedicated vinyl junkies have been known to arrive with a sleeping bag at closing time the Friday night before, just to reserve their place in line! We often get asked "when does the queue start to form?", or "how early should I get there?", but as it’s a once-a-year event, it’s very hard to anticipate. We’d observe that it's heavily weather dependant (heavy rain is likely to decrease numbers!), and the event itself gets more popular each year. Last year the queue consisted of a handful of fanatics until about 3am, when it started to grow to double figures. By 6am we welcomed about 50 people in from the cold, and by the time we opened the record shop at 8am we were well into triple figures.
"How does it 'work' on the day?" Record Store Day may have begun in America, but over here we love a good old fashioned British queue. So as you come through the door at 6am, you’ll receive a numbered ticket that will reserve your place in the queue, leaving you to get comfy in the café for a couple of hours. When the record emporium doors open at 8am, we’ll serve you in that order (“Deli-counter style”), just to ensure a true “first come, first served” procedure. Please be aware that products won't be physically browseable / in the racks - you'll need to tell us what you want and we'll dig it our for you from behind the counter. We do it this way to prevent any scrums for products, and to speed the whole process up (we'll know exactly where what you're looking for is, and you won't). Please feel free to ask to view something before committing to buying it, and most of all please do your homework and know what you're looking for before showing up. Asking "umm... any good soul reissues?" after everyone's been queuing for hours is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, and incredibly lazy of you. It’s also worth mentioning that we’re only allowed to sell one copy of any given title to any customer at a time (but you can buy as many different titles as you like). Although it’s somewhat inevitable, this rule is in place to stop the selfish and greedy amongst us from buying up lots of “in demand” titles and selling them for double the price online. ERA / RSD have specifically encouraged us to flat-out refuse service to any greedy low-lifes who we suspect of doing this - it'd be a real shame to queue up all night, try to buy hundreds of different titles for your eBay chumps, and be refused, wouldn't it?!
Wishlists We're no longer accepting wish lists as we've had to place all our orders with suppliers. So thank you for sending them in (if you did), and best of luck to everyone getting what you want!
"What Are You Stocking?" Due to time limitations we're simply listing everything we anticipate to stock on our online shop this year (no provisional stock list). Click here to have a "virtual browse" of all the titles we have on order, but remember this is all far from confirmed at the moment - inevitably, some will be added and some will be removed.
Final Confirmed Stock List Sometime mid/late afternoon on Friday 12th April (the night before Record Store Day itself) we’ll publish a completely accurate list of everything we have in stock, and (crucially) how much of everything we have too. This should leave all customers well informed enough to decide when they want to start queuing outside / if they want to spend the night on the streets or not!
Live Music & RSD Celebrations Once the vinyl emporium opens, the fun doesn’t stop there – we’ve got live music upstairs all through the day, starting from midday and running right until when we close at 6pm (see below, more details here) with all the usual food and booze available throughout. 12pm - Gabby Rivers 1pm - Ikigai 2pm - Tundra 3pm - Mammoth Penguins 4pm - Influx Of Insanity 5pm - Max Bianco & The BlueHearts And of course we’ll be blasting out choice cuts from the Record Store Day product list all day in the basement, where we also have ample seating, as well as Cambridge’s best selection of new and pre-owned vinyl!
All updates will be posted on the dedicated Record Store Day 2019 page of our website: https://www.relevantrecordcafe.co.uk/recordstoreday Or for those of you for whom the internet is just shopping, social media and nothing else, on this Facebook Event Page. …stay tuned for more info, coming soon!
"How do I make sure I get the records I want?" Record Store Day is truly a day when all record collectors are created equal; there’s no reserving, no pre-ordering, no products “going to the highest bidder” and definitely no pushing or shoving. The only thing you can do is show up as early as you can on Saturday 13th April - and we do mean early, customers have previously started queuing at 11:30pm the night before to get their hands on the records they wanted! You may have seen that we were asking customers to send us their "wish lists" so that we could attempt to order as accurately as possible, though all orders have now been placed and we're no longer able to amend them (so no more wish lists, please).
"When do you open?" Records stores across the country are banned from making any sales before 8am. In most cases this would mean hours and hours of queuing up outside in the freezing cold, squatting uncomfortably on the pavement, and maybe spilling a thermos of coffee on your lap to keep warm (if you’re lucky!) However, we open the doors to our café at 6am, and invite everyone in for a bacon roll, all the tea and coffee you can drink, and a warm & comfy place to sit and count down the last couple of hours before those limited edition records go on sale at 8am. Over the past few years we’ve even welcomed in a table of regulars who manage to consume a vast amount of Prosecco before the record emporium even opens… we’re happy to cater to those who really like to celebrate the day in style!
"What time should I start queuing?" Of course you’re welcome to start queuing outside the shop as early as you want: truly dedicated vinyl junkies have been known to arrive with a sleeping bag at closing time the Friday night before, just to reserve their place in line! We often get asked "when does the queue start to form?", or "how early should I get there?", but as it’s a once-a-year event, it’s very hard to anticipate. We’d observe that it's heavily weather dependant (heavy rain is likely to decrease numbers!), and the event itself gets more popular each year. Last year the queue consisted of a handful of fanatics until about 3am, when it started to grow to double figures. By 6am we welcomed about 50 people in from the cold, and by the time we opened the record shop at 8am we were well into triple figures.
"How does it 'work' on the day?" Record Store Day may have begun in America, but over here we love a good old fashioned British queue. So as you come through the door at 6am, you’ll receive a numbered ticket that will reserve your place in the queue, leaving you to get comfy in the café for a couple of hours. When the record emporium doors open at 8am, we’ll serve you in that order (“Deli-counter style”), just to ensure a true “first come, first served” procedure. Please be aware that products won't be physically browseable / in the racks - you'll need to tell us what you want and we'll dig it our for you from behind the counter. We do it this way to prevent any scrums for products, and to speed the whole process up (we'll know exactly where what you're looking for is, and you won't). Please feel free to ask to view something before committing to buying it, and most of all please do your homework and know what you're looking for before showing up. Asking "umm... any good soul reissues?" after everyone's been queuing for hours is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, and incredibly lazy of you. It’s also worth mentioning that we’re only allowed to sell one copy of any given title to any customer at a time (but you can buy as many different titles as you like). Although it’s somewhat inevitable, this rule is in place to stop the selfish and greedy amongst us from buying up lots of “in demand” titles and selling them for double the price online. ERA / RSD have specifically encouraged us to flat-out refuse service to any greedy low-lifes who we suspect of doing this - it'd be a real shame to queue up all night, try to buy hundreds of different titles for your eBay chumps, and be refused, wouldn't it?!
Wishlists We're no longer accepting wish lists as we've had to place all our orders with suppliers. So thank you for sending them in (if you did), and best of luck to everyone getting what you want!
"What Are You Stocking?" Due to time limitations we're simply listing everything we anticipate to stock on our online shop this year (no provisional stock list). Click here to have a "virtual browse" of all the titles we have on order, but remember this is all far from confirmed at the moment - inevitably, some will be added and some will be removed.
Final Confirmed Stock List Sometime mid/late afternoon on Friday 12th April (the night before Record Store Day itself) we’ll publish a completely accurate list of everything we have in stock, and (crucially) how much of everything we have too. This should leave all customers well informed enough to decide when they want to start queuing outside / if they want to spend the night on the streets or not!
Live Music & RSD Celebrations Once the vinyl emporium opens, the fun doesn’t stop there – we’ve got live music upstairs all through the day, starting from midday and running right until when we close at 6pm (see below, more details here) with all the usual food and booze available throughout. 12pm - Gabby Rivers 1pm - Ikigai 2pm - Tundra 3pm - Mammoth Penguins 4pm - Influx Of Insanity 5pm - Max Bianco & The BlueHearts And of course we’ll be blasting out choice cuts from the Record Store Day product list all day in the basement, where we also have ample seating, as well as Cambridge’s best selection of new and pre-owned vinyl!
All updates will be posted on the dedicated Record Store Day 2019 page of our website: https://www.relevantrecordcafe.co.uk/recordstoreday Or for those of you for whom the internet is just shopping, social media and nothing else, on this Facebook Event Page. …stay tuned for more info, coming soon!