The chain recently announced a major vinyl expansion plan, in addition to a website relaunch to dive pre-orders, and has now revealed it will increase in-store performances.
Looking beyond big names, HMV plans to host emerging artists and unsigned bands if they have a physical product to sell at an in-store show.
HMV plans to open up its stores to unsigned acts over the weekends, with weekday slots reserved for established acts and album launches.
The changes follow Doug Pitman’s acquisition of HMV earlier in the year.
The businessman is also the chief executive of the Canadian retail chain Sunrise Records, which he acquired in 2014.
He grew the chain form five stores to 84 branches and also took over HMV Canada two years after taking on Sunrise Records.
HMV’s plans are similar to the way Sunrise Records functions and is part of a wider strategy to restore the chain’s specialist music credentials.
John Hirst, head of music, HMV, says: ‘We’re opening up to a lot more local artists as well, it’s about creating events in store particularly at the weekends. So we’ve opened up to local artists and we’ve relaxed our rules on stocking local artists’ products, so local acts can drop into their nearest HMV and get their stock on the shelf in there.
‘We used to be really good at that back in the day, but we had to move away from it in the wake of the previous administration. We’re really embracing that again, it’s something Sunrise in Canada do an awful lot of. So if somebody wants to come in, play a few songs and flog 20 CDs we’ve got the ability to do that for them now at the weekends.
‘We’re certainly giving that a big push. We did about 250 in-stores last year, we want to get that up to more like a thousand this year, which sounds ridiculous but it’s only 10 per store over the course of the year.’
Looking beyond big names, HMV plans to host emerging artists and unsigned bands if they have a physical product to sell at an in-store show.
HMV plans to open up its stores to unsigned acts over the weekends, with weekday slots reserved for established acts and album launches.
The changes follow Doug Pitman’s acquisition of HMV earlier in the year.
The businessman is also the chief executive of the Canadian retail chain Sunrise Records, which he acquired in 2014.
He grew the chain form five stores to 84 branches and also took over HMV Canada two years after taking on Sunrise Records.
HMV’s plans are similar to the way Sunrise Records functions and is part of a wider strategy to restore the chain’s specialist music credentials.
John Hirst, head of music, HMV, says: ‘We’re opening up to a lot more local artists as well, it’s about creating events in store particularly at the weekends. So we’ve opened up to local artists and we’ve relaxed our rules on stocking local artists’ products, so local acts can drop into their nearest HMV and get their stock on the shelf in there.
‘We used to be really good at that back in the day, but we had to move away from it in the wake of the previous administration. We’re really embracing that again, it’s something Sunrise in Canada do an awful lot of. So if somebody wants to come in, play a few songs and flog 20 CDs we’ve got the ability to do that for them now at the weekends.
‘We’re certainly giving that a big push. We did about 250 in-stores last year, we want to get that up to more like a thousand this year, which sounds ridiculous but it’s only 10 per store over the course of the year.’
