While most will still be recovering from Thanksgiving, bargain shoppers will be looking forward to their favorite holiday – Black Friday. And Tysons Corner Center is helping them celebrate.
While most will still be recovering from Thanksgiving, bargain shoppers will be looking forward to their favorite holiday – Black Friday. And Tysons Corner Center is helping them celebrate.
For the second year, the shopping center will be hosting a Midnight Madness sale, where the 300 stores within the center will open their doors at midnight to shoppers.
“All of the small shops and retailers within the shopping center will be open at midnight,” said Allison Fischer, a spokesperson for Tysons Corner Center. “The department stores will not be opening at midnight, but are opening at special hours.”
Before the now annual event, the shopping center didn’t open its doors until 5 a.m. But the response from last year’s event was so positive, Fischer said, that Tysons Corner Center decided to host the Midnight Madness sale again.
“We were very impressed with the number of shoppers who came to the shopping center between 12 a.m. and 5 a.m.,” Fischer said. “It really was a great start to the holiday shopping season and we anticipate the same sort of results this year.”
The mall will open its doors at 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving to let shoppers come in out of the cold, plan for which items they would like to buy and which stores they would like to visit, and line up in front of the stores they would like to visit. The stores themselves will open at midnight.
And according to Fischer, retailers were happy to work in the wee hours of the morning to take part in this event.
“The stores were very happy with the turnout and with the traffic that was in the shopping center,” Fischer said.
But the holiday shopping event won’t only offer shoppers the chance to make purchases at early hours. In Black Friday tradition – the holiday so-called because the increase in holiday purchases takes retailers’ books out of the red and into the black – stores will be offering various promotions to encourage purchases. Though promotions at each store vary, discounts will be higher in the earlier hours of the event and will decrease in later hours, though most stores will be offering day-long discounts and promotions. A complete list of promotions and stores can be located online at Tysons Corner Center’s website, shoptysons.com.
“Consumers are very, very savvy,” said Fischer. “People are looking for the discounts and the savings, so this type of event is one that people want to take advantage of.”
In addition to the promotions offered by individual retailers, the center itself has much in store for customers. They will be holding a drawing that customers can enter to win a $10,000 shopping spree, and they will be giving a $10 American Express gift card to the first 100 people who line up to enter Macy’s, one of the center’s department stores that will be opening later in the morning. Tysons Corner Center “Ambassadors” will be providing shoppers with information and advice on finding gifts, and DJ JT, who will be located in the Macy’s court, will be giving customers a beat to shop to from midnight to 5 a.m.
“We think he is the greatest DJ in the DC area,” said Fischer. “He does all of our events.”
While some might find shopping in the early hours of the morning the day after Thanksgiving to, indeed, be midnight madness, Fischer explained that customers taking advantage of Black Friday shopping aren’t only looking to benefit from discounts.
“People want to get that shopping done, cross it off the list, and then they can enjoy the holiday season,” Fischer said.
But shoppers more likely to wait until the last minute to do their holiday shopping need not despair. Fischer said that the shopping center will set up “procrastination stations” later in the shopping season “with all the hottest gift ideas to help those people who didn’t want to get up at 12, but wanted to wait until the end of the season.”
The center’s four department stores will not be opening at midnight, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and Lord & Taylor will open at 5 a.m. Nordstrom will open at 7 a.m.
Tysons Corner Center is located at Route 7 and 123 in McLean. For more information, call 703-893-9400 or visit shoptysons.com.
