Target to open 500 stores at midnight for release of Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl
Target will open 500 stores at midnight on October 3 to sell Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl.
Target has announced plans to open 500 stores at midnight on October 3 to sell Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated new album, The Life of a Showgirl.
The special event will see select Target locations across the US stay open beyond regular trading hours, making the album available at midnight local time. Fans can find participating stores via a dedicated store locator or pre-order online through Target’s website.
The move revives a retro-era tradition of late-night album drops, once common in decades gone by before the digital age changed music consumption. According to Variety, unlike older midnight sales events, stores won’t close and reopen, instead, they’ll remain open into the early hours specifically for Swift’s release.
The Life Of A Showgirl is Swift’s 12th studio album and follows 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department. The project has already broken a Spotify record for the most pre-saved album before release. It will be available in multiple formats, including Target-exclusive variants and a standard edition.
The album was co-produced by Max Martin, Shellback, and Swift herself, and features a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter on the title track. Swift has called it “the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time,” describing it as “exuberant, electric, and vibrant.” Much of the project was recorded in Sweden during breaks from her record-shattering Eras Tour.
Speaking on the New Heights podcast, Swift confirmed the album will include 12 songs with no additional surprise tracks.
She said: "It comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild and dramatic place I was in my life.
“With The Tortured Poets Department, I was like, ‘Here’s a data dump of everything I thought and felt in two or three years. Here’s 31 songs’. This is 12. There’s not a 13th, there’s not other ones coming.”
The release comes shortly after news of her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce, and amid speculation she could headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2026.
The Life of a Showgirl has also received Kelce's seal of approval as the Kansas City Chiefs tight end revealed that he has been "dancing throughout the house" to the new record.
The sports star told brother Jason Kelce on their New Heights podcast: "I’m gonna go ahead and just keep poking the bear to all the Swifties.
"I keep listening to this album. I know she mentioned that it’s gonna be a lot more pop beats, but it’s just still so poetic in her melodies and her references and stuff."
He continued: "It’s just so much fun to listen to, man. I’ve been dancing throughout the house."
"I’m not a politician, Jason."
