Record Store Day lines & drops

Record Store Day 2026 started before sunrise at some independent shops, with fans lining up hours early for limited-run vinyl on Saturday, April 18. (aol.com) At Seasick Records in Birmingham, Alabama, customers began queuing at 4 a.m. Friday for an 8 a.m. Saturday opening, according to the store and local television reports. Seasick said Record Store Day titles were in-store only, first come, first served, with a limit of one copy per person for each release. (aol.com) (seasickbham.com) In Champaign, Illinois, Exile on Main Street opened at 7 a.m. for shoppers chasing limited items and scheduled 11 straight hours of live music starting at 10 a.m., with 21 artists on the bill. The store, located at 100 North Chestnut Street, has operated in Champaign-Urbana since 2004. (wcia.com) (exilemainstreet.com) Record Store Day is built around exclusive or short-run releases that are sold through participating independent stores on a single date. The official site says the event began after a 2007 gathering of store owners and employees, and the first Record Store Day was held on April 19, 2008. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) For 2026, the official release list covered hundreds of titles, and the event site says participating stores in the United States are part of a network of nearly 1,400 independent record shops, with thousands more internationally. The official Record Store Day releases page lists each title with label, format and quantity. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) That structure turns the day into a queue-and-sellout ritual: stores set one-copy limits, ban holds or preorders, and post special opening times to manage demand. Seasick used all three rules for April 18, and Exile told customers its Record Store Day table would be arranged alphabetically when doors opened. (seasickbham.com) (experiencecu.org) Rochester, New York, showed the same pattern. Record Archive posted a Record Store Day 2026 catalog on its site, and local television photographed the store’s vinyl section on Friday, April 17, ahead of the event; Rochester outlets have also documented overnight campouts at the store in prior years. (shop.recordarchive.com) (13wham.com) (whec.com) The 2026 release slate stretched across classic rock, metal, pop, jazz and soundtracks, with music sites publishing long shopping guides before stores opened. Loudwire’s sister publications Ultimate Classic Rock and Louder each highlighted large batches of April 18 exclusives and limited editions from the official list. (ultimateclassicrock.com) (loudersound.com) (recordstoreday.com) By Saturday morning, the pattern was familiar: early lines outside neighborhood shops, one shot at scarce pressings, and a day built to push vinyl buyers through independent stores instead of online carts. (aol.com) (recordstoreday.com)