GIVE US THE BACKGROUND - WHEN AND WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OPEN A RECORD SHOP?

Banquet is an independent record shop in Kingston, just on the outskirts of London. We're a real record shop run by real people. Our mail order is a big part of what we do, as we send out thousands of mail order packages a month. But we are and always will be, a real record shop on the High Street, or in our case, Eden Street. We sell new-copies-only vinyl, CDs and more from the worlds of indie, punk-rock, and modern dance music, as well as soundtracks and re-issues of classics. Navigating round our site should tell you more and give you a feel of what we're about.As well as being a record shop, we're a concert and clubs promoter, putting on 200 events a year in and around Kingston. These range from intimate in-store gigs to a dozen people, to international touring bands playing our local 3-tiered theatre. Doing the small shows is just as important to us as doing the big gigs. Because we know it is to you too. Find out about our future shows from the events page.Banquet as we know it today was formed in 2004 when we took over the struggling business it was then from the ashes of the Beggars Banquet chain of shops. We continue to be run by and for music fans. We're very lucky to do this job and thank you for allowing us to do so.