The project is called New Music 20x12 which covers a wide range of genres from contemporary classical, folk and opera in Scotland and Northern Ireland to bell ringing, beatboxing, jazz and brass band music in England and Wales.
The Furniture Village chain - which, as a vendor of big-ticket durable goods, is particularly sensitive to consumer frugality - reported almost a thousand transactions at its 40 stores by mid-afternoon on Boxing Day, putting it on course to beat the 1, 200 sales it closed on the same day in 2011.