The team behind Record Store Day has announced plans to reformat the event for 2020 in response to record shop closures and social distancing measures currently in place around the world due to COVID-19.

Having originally been scheduled to take place on April 18, plans were put in place last month to reschedule the event to June 20. Now, however, it's been confirmed that the event will be spread across three Saturdays – August 29, September 26 and October 24 – as a means of moving the focus away from large in-store events. The new plans mean that special releases will be staggered across the dates.

"No one knows what kind of party we'll all be in the mood for, or able to hold safely, at any time this year, in any part of the world," a post shared via Record Store Day US' Instagram page reads. "So we're focusing this year not on the party aspect of Record Store Day, but on getting the great releases on the RSD 2020 List into your local record store, and then into your collection."

A further update via Record Store Day's website clarifies that online rules for releases will be relaxed this year. (Stock must usually be held back by shops from online sale until a specified date.)

"To clarify, this year online rules have changed so that shops in the UK can sell online from 6pm," Record Store Day says. "Selling online is a shop by shop decision and will be dependent on the status of the pandemic at the time of these three dates. This is new to all of us and very new to the shops. They are still figuring how to best make this work in the safest and fairest way. They will communicate how they intend to sell these records closer to the time as this is a fast-moving and ever-changing situation."

An updated version of exclusive Record Store Day 2020 releases, and their new release dates, will be made available via Record Store Day's website on June 1.