Twice a year we take two days to honor independent record stores and our favorite physical music format! Record Store Day and RSD Black Friday take place annually on the third Saturday in April and Black Friday in November, respectively- and we take the day to give back to our amazing customers and celebrate with live music, sales, giveaways, and of course the exclusive, limited-edition releases.

 

Darkside RSD Policies

Record Store Day is always an exciting time of year! Twice a year – on the third Saturday of April and Black Friday – record labels and artists come together to offer an array of exclusive, limited edition pieces to independent music stores across the country. Most of these releases are extremely limited in nature – with some pieces only having a few hundred pressed. While we LOVE being able to bring you items like this, the nature of the situation does make it so we have to put some guidelines in place. Some of these are our own personal store guidelines, while others are rules that we must agree to follow in order to even be allowed to stock these pieces for you.

- All titles are available on a first come, first serve basis.

- No phone orders.

- No holds.

- No Preorders.

- One copy of each title per customer.

- No later than the night before RSD we will release what we call our menu with every exclusive RSD item that we have IN STOCK. The menu will also include the retail price of what each item will be. If a title that is slated to come out is not listed on the menu, then unfortunately we do not have it. Why would this happen? We place orders for virtually every Record Store Day release, but because of the limited availability of the releases, record labels & distributors sometimes have to allocate because every participating RSD store in the country has ordered it too. Sometimes we get exactly what was ordered, sometimes it's a little less, sometimes it means we don't get any. We won't actually know what we're getting until the boxes show up. For example, if something is limited to 500 copies nationwide, but 1000 stores order it, then only half are going to get to stock it.

- We operate on a line system. The earlier you get here, the closer you will be to the front of the line. All the special releases are organized behind our counter (this keeps everything orderly & smooth. No trampling or pushing & shoving on our watch!). There will be multiple registers running so you can take your time at the register deciding on which titles are for you! When we open, the line will be directed to the register area and you will “place your order”. Then you're free to browse all the awesome sales & non RSD records filling up our racks! There will be a separate register just for those purchases, so you don't have to wait in line all over again. Why do we do it this way?! Mostly because we don't want anyone to get trampled. This is what we have found to be not only the most organized way to do this, but also the fairest.

- OPEN 9AM! We are open from 9am - 8pm. If you are NOT shopping for RSD exclusives you do not have to wait in line, come on in!

- USE THE MENU: Our RSD 'menu' of available titles will be available digitally on our website or in printed form on the morning of RSD. Please check off titles you'd like and hand it to your cashier when making purchases for easy quick shopping!

- SHOP ONLINE SUNDAY: Unsold and remaining RSD titles will be made available for online sale beginning Sunday at 8am. Shop them at https://shop.darksiderecords.com

**We reserve the right to keep the availability of some products as in-store only.

- DONT BE A DINGUS: Rules are at the discretion of Darkside Staff and are subject to change. Failure to follow the rules will result in immediate ejection and potential banning from future events.