Residents queue up for the grand opening of Kingston’s new HMV store
At 9am this morning, Friday 22 November, around 30 people queued up to be among the first to take a look at Kingston's new HMV store.
The new store is located on the first floor of The Bentall Centre.
Staff at the new store welcomed locals to its grand opening with tunes from Sabrina Carpenter.
The new store sells a variety of items, including vinyls, CDs, DVDs, posters, books, and merchandise such as that from the new Wicked film, which comes out today.
The store also has a section filled with Taylor Swift CDs, vinyls, and merch and a similar one for K-pop, both of which will be immensely popular among customers.
One excited customer even began queueing outside the store at 7.30am in the hope to be the first to enter the new store and nab an HMV goodie bag with his first purchase.
Speaking about his excitement about the new store, the customer told Kingston Nub: "I've been waiting for the store to open for years, so I'm super excited about it opening today.
"I've had to go to the stores in Westfield and Oxford Circus, but it's a bit of a trek, that's why I queued a bit earlier this morning and I'm glad I got in.
"I just love buying CDs, I refuse to get Spotify because although I'm a huge music fan, I just prefer to have physical items."
The customer bought a basket's full of CDs and spent over an hour browsing the new store.
Another customer said: "I always loved buying friends and family Christmas presents from HMV, so it's perfect timing that this new store has opened now.
"I've been so excited for its opening."
Kingston previously had an HMV in the same unit of the Bentall Centre, however this closed in 2016.
Following the closure, HMV moved down to the basement, before closing on 22 March 2022.
Following the closure of the first-floor store, there were plans to use the space as a food court or restaurant.
However, this did not happen, so the space has remained vacant since.
At the old store, the large windows to the left of the store were blocked by a black wall.
In the new store, these windows have been left on show allowing natural light to seep through.
The store's manager, Brendan, who was previously assistant manager for the basement unit told Kingston Nub that he's "super excited" about the new opening.
He said: "I'm a music man, I've always been a music person.
"So, the fact that we still sell physical media as well too, it's really cool.
"I also like being on the shop floor, just dealing with people, talking to people and just having a chat about music. That's my key driver for working here.
"It's nice that we're reopening the unit again. We were very popular when were downstairs and just by talking to people when we were closed and obviously by social media, I've found that everyone's very excited that we're back."
Brendan said that he hopes to hold live local initiatives in the store a couple times a week whereby local artists will perform live at the store to promote their music and/ or albums.
He wants to create a performing area outside the shop so that the performers' music can be heard throughout the centre.
Brendan also plans to host Taylor Swift and K-pop events.
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