The cold, brisk air brushes against the trees, gently rustling them. The sun has barely peeked over the horizon, yet sunshine still seems a million miles away. For anyone else, heading out early in the morning on a day after it snowed is ill advised. Standing outside in the elements? Even more so. But for passionate music fans, this struggle is worth it, and April 18, 2026 is far from just another calendar date. This day for them doesn’t mean just showing up an hour or two early before a store opens. In fact, most of them have been in line since 8 o’clock… 8 o’clock the previous night, that is.
Record Store Day, or RSD as some refer to it, is a monumental day for music fans and casual listeners alike. Not only does this mean exclusive new musical releases, but it also means local businesses get a boost in sales.
“So Record Store Day is sort of an international celebration of vinyl records, and those that engage with the collectors hobby,” said Sean Fogerty, manager at All Sales Vinyl in Fort Collins. “A lot of the time they are stuff that we’ve been waiting for for a long time, that have never been released to vinyl. Stuff that has been out of print for decades.”
This surplus of people at the small record shop in Fort Collins is no new task for Fogerty and his team. For the last few years the shop has taken RSD head on by meticulously preparing and organizing the releases fans have been ever so patient for.
RSD isn’t exactly a holiday you’d see marked on a nationwide calendar, but for collectors this day means so much. To encourage sales at local record stores, artists release exclusive deep cuts, live albums or repressings that can only be found if you go in person. Often, these quantities are limited as well, meaning the game is first come first serve.
“It’s really an experience for those that are really, really passionate about both music and vinyl,” Fogerty said. “A lot of the stuff that we’re selling on Record Store Day is not found pretty much anywhere else, unless you’re like, there with a microphone… or have some weird bootleg.”
Properly getting the shop set up during this time is crucial. With receiving seven to nine boxes of records a day, the stock can quickly become overwhelming. However, to manage this, All Sales Vinyl utilized a “wishlist” form.
Essentially, customers could request specific vinyls before the date came. In doing this, Fogerty and his team could find trends to know which of the limited releases they should get the most of.
And when people began setting up camp the night prior, it only further highlighted the extra mile fans will go to secure these releases. If getting there three hours before the shop opened sounded like a good idea, the line was already around the block.
But the cold is worth it, and All Sales Vinyl recognized the effort by setting up a coffee station for people to try and stay toasty. As anticipation for the doors to open spread, people began discussing the releases in line. Complete strangers, united by a love for art, music and community.
“A lot of people north of Denver come here first, and then we get people coming down,” Fogerty said. “It’s really interesting, actually, as the day goes on, you see these waves of people.”
While Record Store Day doesn’t guarantee finding what you came for, some fans say the search is thrilling enough.
Small groups were let in on a first come first serve basis, and with each person leaving with their purchases, the crowd erupted with cheers.
Some danced their way out of the shop’s exit, eagerly gripping onto the LPs they had spent so long waiting for. Others quietly left, with expressions reflecting not disappointment, but rather a hunger to move on to the next shop. For James Zimmerman, a secondary English education major from the University of Northern Colorado, the competition was quite fierce.
“I was down here in Fort Collins looking for the new Ethel Cain album, but unfortunately we got here a little too late and I wasn’t able to get my hands on it,” Zimmerman said. “But I got my hands on a bunch of other cool records.”
This situation is not an uncommon scenario, as many artists do first releases of an album on RSD before mass production to tease it. These first time pressings are categorized as “RSD First Release” and can be highly sought after. For perspective, Ethel Cain’s “Inbred” album only had 6,500 pressings for nationwide distribution for RSD.
Despite this being the 18th year of the biannual event, some attendees were getting their first taste of the search that RSD brings. For Fort Collins resident Tony Bouchard, this first year felt like a massive hit.
“My first time, even though I have, you know, a collection of about 500 records,” Bouchard said. “Kind of fun!”
For eagle-eyed fans this is not the end of record celebrations in Fort Collins. The following Saturday, April 25, is also when the Northern Colorado Record Show takes place. So even if buyers missed out on the releases for Record Store Day, there is always a second chance to maybe grab them from an independent seller.
And though the event is only for one day, nationwide record stores see a huge boom in sales. The hours of planning, stressing and ultimately pulling off the event for the community makes it all worth it.
“I mean, it means a lot of things. Access to stuff you that you never thought you’d see.” Fogerty said. “Also, it literally is a coming together of community. You get to hangout with other people that collect vinyl.”
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