Target Plans to Do Midnight Openings at 500 Stores to Sell Taylor Swift’s ‘Life of a Showgirl’ Album

Which century is this? Midnight openings for stores to sell hot new album releases at the moment they’re allowed to go on sale are largely an artifact of the ’80s and ’90s, before streaming and downloading became the preferred way to get immediate musical gratification. But Taylor Swift‘s forthcoming album is big enough to be stirring a return to that bygone phenomenon.

Target announced Sunday that select stores will open at midnight local time on Oct. 3 to sell copies of Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” album, including exclusive variants as well as the standard edition. The chain tells Variety that the number of local stores participating in the midnight opening will be about 500.

Target is not yet revealing which stores will do the special openings, but said that a store locator page would go online between now and release date at https://www.target.com/c/the-life-of-a-showgirl-midnight-release-store-locator/ to let fans know which outlets are participating.

The surprising notice about the wee-hours on-sale in physical locations came as part of an announcement Target made about three exclusive CD editions of the “Showgirl” album that it will be carrying as part of its longtime partnership with the pop superstar.

For anyone not desperate to grab hold of a physical copy in their pajamas, all these editions are also up for normal presale on the chain’s website.

Midnight openings were a staple of music retail in the glory days of the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s, when Tower Records still ruled the earth — usually happening on Tuesday nights, when albums were being released on Wednesdays instead of Fridays, as they are now. In the modern era, such late-night openings are almost unheard of, when fans can easily access the same material digitally in an instant. There are still fairly rare instances of the ma-and-pa shops that now constitute the bulk of music retail doing a midnight opening for a release by an act that has a particular following in that market.

There are few, if any, known instances, though, of a big-box retailer opening its doors at midnight specifically for an album release, in the old days or now. But Taylor Swift is such a monster seller of physical product that it’s not hard to see why she would cause a national retailer to consider unusual tactics.

Even though Black Friday has become more of an online phenomenon and causes little frenzy in most brick-and-mortar stores anymore, Target saw a huge influx into its stores last November when an exclusive vinyl edition of the deluxe version of “The Tortured Poets Department” went on sale the day after Thanksgiving along with an exclusive Eras Tour Book, with the LP set almost immediately selling out in most stores.

Swift has been a much bigger seller of vinyl product than CDs, following general trends in the physical market, but she appears to be going to extra length to make inroads with compact disc sales, too, on this release. She already put three CD editions that were exclusive to her webstore on sale, quickly selling them out.

These new Target CDs echo the artwork of physical editions Swift previously put on sale in her webstore (and also quickly sold out). The new editions each include exclusive posters. One is the “It’s Frightening” edition, another is the “It’s Rapturous” edition, and the third is the “It’s Beautiful” edition.

Variety is keeping a running list going of the various “Life of a Showgirl” variants in LP, CD and, yes, cassette form, which will soon be updated to include these new Target editions.