Saturday 10th December, 2011 – Decked in festive lighting, the Victorian halls of Spitalfields market was emanating plenty of Christmas spirit for it’s hosting of the Independent Label Market. The event was already a pretty special experience as it was one of the first Saturday markets to be held at Spitalfields in over one hundred years. It brought together heads of PIAS distributed labels, independent music lovers and those looking to inherit a unique piece of music history – like a signed copy of Elton John’s ‘Are You Ready For Love’ on pink vinyl, with a Keith Haring and David Bailey picture sleeve. This special Christmas market, in association with AIM, was to support those labels that lost stock in the PIAS/Sony warehouse fire in August 2011. It opened up a great communication channel between label owners and their supporters – attendees at the market were able to meet and speak with the label owners when buying and browsing the records, and prove just why independent record labels are so important in the music industry.