Record Store Day 2025: Success For Independent Record Stores (And For Scalpers)
By Luella Coley
Music fans like myself are certainly not unfamiliar with queuing, whether it’s the infamous ticketmaster battles, outside concert venues, or down the street at your local record store once a year. This year’s Record Store Day (RSD), on Saturday 12th April, was no exception – maximising your chances of scoring the big ticket items by waking up in the early hours or even setting up camp the night before. Being more of an early riser, personally, I opted for the harrowing 5am wake-up option and, with a bit of luck on my side, I managed to tick off most of my wish list.
RSD began back in 2007 and now rightfully claims its title of ‘The Biggest New Music Event Of The Past Decade’1. Coming alongside the resurgence of vinyl, RSD is a celebration of independent record stores, who host sales of exclusive vinyl and CD releases, with lists of these special editions published in advance for collectors and fans to peruse.
This was my second time attending, going down to my local store slightly less naively this time around (having underestimated the early morning crowds last year). The 2025 list, as usual, was pretty thorough, with live albums, picture discs and zoetropes taking some of the top slots, but the real targets were the resale money-makers: Wicked: The Soundtrack, 2 LP glitter pink and green; Charli xcx’s ‘Guess’ ft. Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fortnight’ ft. Post Malone, and Gracie Abrams’ ‘Live From Radio City Music Hall’.
6am
I arrived at the location I would undoubtedly be spending, at least, the next 3 hours, with my headphones charged up and enough mini chocolate chip brioches to feed a family of four. At this point, the overnight campers were packing up and heading for cars, coffee shops and restrooms – having just received their coveted raffle ticket to identify their position in the queue. I proudly claimed number 99 and had a nosey through the shop window to get my first glimpse of the prized items, mildly regretting not buckling up and braving the ‘night-before’ strategy after seeing how minimal the stock of my favourites looked.
7am
As the crowds began to reconvene, the team at Black Circle Records handed out much appreciated hot breakfast sandwiches and drinks and people started to compare ticket numbers and get into the correct order. The mental calculations start here, looking ahead in the queue and predicting how many of those people I’m competing with, and trying to estimate what time I might manage to get into the tiny store under the one-in, one-out policy. By this point, we’ve had quite a few confused looks from people just out for their morning walk, or heading to work, explaining our niche attraction on this otherwise normal Saturday morning.
8am
The store opens, with a thank you from the owners and an explanation of how they’ll be running the morning for the newcomers, and soon after we see the first customers leaving with full tote bags hooked over each shoulder – surely either avid collectors or opportunistic ebay sellers with a haul like that. Either way, they can’t be faulted for their perseverance, with rumours bouncing around the queue of them having arrived at 6pm on the Friday.
10am
The most nerve wracking moment arrives. The shop window is just about in sight, there’s just 2 remaining copies of my most wanted item, but still 10 people ahead in the queue. To lose out here, and to watch it happen would be devastating, and you can definitely feel the same angst from the others edging towards the doorway. An equal fear though, is taking the last copy at the expense of the people just behind you, who you’ve befriended in the last few hours.
A ‘Record’ Success?
I have to say though, I felt nothing but relieved accomplishment taking the last copy of Gracie Abrams’ live album off the shelf, and grasping a 7” Taylor Swift record moments later. At this point, you disregard the actual cost of the items, just feeling pride in having got through theordeal, letting the burden of the £37.99 price tag hit you later – especially knowing that a 150% profit is just a click away if the impulsive madness wears off.So it’s then my turn to swankily stride out the doors, looking back on the hundreds of shoppers behind me, and flaunt my tote bag of goods on the way to claim my most anticipated prize by this point – a well deserved nap.
The guilt then arrives, though, when you reconnect with the social media world and get slapped with tweets from disappointed swifties claiming that even a top 10 spot in their local queue didn’t earn them their trophy, or from fans of Wicked who just wanted to get their hands on the vinyl soundtrack without forking out the £300 benchmark figure on Ebay or Vinted. I can understand the disappointment, I’d have loved to broaden my collection further, and I’m certainly not poised to spend double the retail price online, but what can be done?
Is the problem just luck of the draw, or were these items poached by scalpers — resellers who had no intention beyond exploiting desperate fans? It’s hard to say, but just like with concert tickets, there will be no resolution to the issue of reselling while fans are still willing to fork out the funds, and, besides, the record stores are still getting their yearly boost to keep them incompetition with the likes of HMV aren’t they? For the unlucky vinyl-lovers, it’s going to be a ‘post-RSD’ weekend of scouring the internet, and other stores for their most precious wants, but for me, I’ll selfishly say I’m quite proud of my purchases and that’s me sorted until RSD 2026.
Sources
- Record Store Day UK, “About RSD | Celebrate Record Store Day,” Recordstoreday.co.uk, 2025, https://www.recordstoreday.co.uk/about-rsd
