20 Apr 2026
A customer started queuing 19 hours before the doors opened at Empire Records in Heritage Close for this year’s Record Store Day.
Saturday’s annual event – the 12th since RSD began – saw a staggering 500 exclusive records released, all of which are only available from independent record stores.
National Record Store Day originated in the United States in 2007 after a group of independent record shop owners came together to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture of their stores, and soon spread across the Atlantic.
The queues outside Empire Records lasted well into the afternoon, much longer than usual, and reached as far back as Starbucks in High Street.
The Empire team of Marina Desclavis, Dave Burgess, Eddie James and Daisy Clarke said afterwards: “St Albans did us proud once again. Thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate Record Store Day UK , and made it our most successful one yet!
“It’s always a huge event on our calendar, and we always aim to satisfy everyone’s wish list on the day. It really means a lot to us to see so many happy people enjoying the day with us.
“A special love goes to the one customer who started queuing 19 hours before the doors opened… this guy was incredible! We had a huge selection, the list of records counted more than over 300 artists, and we had more than 1,000 vinyl records to offer our customers.
“They all seems happy to be part of this event, you could feel the love, respect and pure joy from them, the positivity was contagious, all of them came with a big smile… and we couldn’t be happier!”
