The owner of one of Britain’s most successful independent record stores has called on people to celebrate the uniqueness of their small music shops.

Saturday marks the 10th annual Record Store Day with avid music fans and stores gearing up for what has turned into one of the industry’s busiest days of the year.

In the UK more than 200 independent record shops will sell special vinyl releases to eager fans and host artist performances.

Vinyl
Vinyl records (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Jon Tolley, who has run Banquet Records in Kingston, south-west London, for 12 years, said the store would do a “month worth of trade in a weekend”.

He added: “We base our whole business year round this period, we’ll sell more records in April than we will in the last quarter of the year, it’s much busier than Christmas.”

Jon, who collected the Independent Retailer prize at the Music Week awards earlier this month, believes the resurgence of vinyl, which now accounts for 14% of all physical music sales, will continue.

He said: “Technology will evolve, but the beauty of a record is not going to evolve, it is what it is.

“It’s this physical thing which is cumbersome and oversized and a bit weird and it hurts your back when you move home.

“It’s beautiful and it’s ours and no one has the same record collection as you.”

Vinyl
Vinyl records (Jonathan Brady/PA)

But he said Record Store Day is not just about vinyl.

“It’s about how you get your records, it’s about the relationship with your little record shop and the one in the next town is completely different.

“Our strength is that we’re all different, with different pros, different cons and different specialities,” he said.