A slice of retail history on Park Street, Pottermania unplugged, a symbology fixation sparked by The Da Vinci Code, Asterix and Tintin revisited, going ballistic on Ray, Ritwik and Rituparno, swinging to Enrique and Bangla bands big-time? The year that was saw excitement galore at the sensormatic portals and cash tills alike in music and bookstores around town.

Leading the charge was MusicWorld. The Park Street address created history in the industry, becoming the ?first single store in the country? to achieve a sales turnover of Rs 1 crore in one month in December 2004. The average bill value rose to Rs 561, compared to Rs 433 last year, with walk-ins exceeding 1,05,000, according to regional manager Lalita Sinha.

While cassette-to-CD ratio was at an ?all-time high of 0.7:1? at the Park Street store, VCDs and DVDs grew at a staggering 128 per cent and 339 per cent, respectively. Chokher Bali and Harry Potter ? The Prisoner of Azkaban were the top grossers among the new releases of the year, while old classics of Ray and Ghatak evoked great response as well.

?The home video segment simply soared during the course of the year, and a lot of movie sales were director-centric,? said Gautam Jatia, CEO of Emami Landmark. Jatia felt the significant reduction in prices of audio CDs and continuing schemes by music companies desperate to offload imports drove sales and triggered a paradigm shift in consumer preferences.

Among international albums, the runaway hits were Have I Told You Lately and All Hits No Words by Sony Music and Enrique?s Seven Special Asia Tour by Universal, while Norah Jones continued to disappear off the racks as rapidly as last year.

Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara and Main Hoon Na were the top three soundtracks in terms of sales, while Bengali films Shubho Mahurat and old classics Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen and Sonar Kella moved well in the VCD/DVD segment, besides Chokher Bali, a sensation at every store. Roman Holiday, Finding Nemo and The Sound of Music were the best-selling international flicks at MusicWorld.

In books, Dan Brown?s The Da Vinci Code emerged the sensation of the year, smashing all sales records everywhere and spawning huge interest in subjects like numerology, symbology, the Holy Grail and anti-Christ. ?It set a trend, just like the Potter books did in the fantasy genre,? observed Jatia.

Oxford Bookstore on Park Street recorded a sales growth of around 21 per cent over last year, with categories like new-age/self-help, children, management and Indology growing the most. New-age tomes like The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The Book Of Prayer were a rage, as were works of fiction like Amitav Ghosh?s The Hungry Tide and Jhumpa Lahiri?s The Namesake.

?We have on an average around 600 people walking in per day, but towards the end of the year, our footfalls hit 800 on peak weekends,? said Swagat Sengupta, senior manager, merchandising & business development, Oxford Bookstore.

Crossword reported a similar rising graph in footfalls ? 500 after the launch to 850 towards the end of the year. ?There was an increased emphasis on education and learning and a good demand for professional self-help and reference books like jewellery design, fashion design, architecture and interiors, advertising and design,? remarked Sidharth Pansari of the Elgin Road store.

The other titles that fared well at Crossword were Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat, Are You Afraid Of The Dark by Sidney Sheldon and The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, besides the Harry Potter books, Eragon and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Landmark, which recorded a 15 per cent growth in sales over last year, reported good movement of PlayStation II CDs as well. ?Asterix and Tintin books were also reintroduced and we have been running out of stocks every 20-30 days. Then of course, there was Pokemon, which was the craze all year round, kicking off with annuals and digests and then exploding into a whole array of related merchandising,? said Jatia.

MusicWorld even reported an ?all-time high? sales of Bengali music ? 1,46,000 units (cassettes and CDs combined) compared to 1,29,000 in the previous year. The sales graph of Rabindrasangeet, an eternal favourite of Bengalis, was up 30 per cent to 57,000.

Subhro Saha