Turning tables: the UK’s new vinyl manufacturer riding the music revival

Turning tables: the UK’s new vinyl manufacturer riding the music revival

For the past year a Middlesbrough pressing plant has been helping artists make records, and there is no sign of demand slowing down

The freshly pressed and trimmed album is ready for storage and packing into an album sleeve at Press On Vinyl in Middlesbrough
The freshly pressed and trimmed album is ready for storage and packing into an album sleeve at Press On Vinyl in Middlesbrough. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

It only received its first pressing machines on Christmas Eve last year, but Press On Vinyl is well on its way to becoming the biggest manufacturer of vinyl records in the UK, already churning out about 3,000 a day and hoping to double that next year.

The popularity of vinyl has soared in recent years – 2022 is expected to be yet another year with the highest sales since the early 1990s – and manufacturers have been unable to cope with demand. Taylor Swift’s Midnights has sold 80,000 copies on vinyl, more than any other album this century, helping to increase vinyl sales above those of CDs for the first time since the 1980s.

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