ToyFarce News: Target’s Summer Geek-Out Event Kicks Off with a Bang... of Silence?

[ToyFarce]

Summer Geek Out? More like Summer Freak Out! Toy collectors across the nation were ready. It was the first Friday of June, the sacred time when Target’s Summer Geek-Out event would begin. Alarms were set. Coffee was brewed. Wallets were braced for impact. But when the clock struck 9 a.m. EST... nothing happened? Target, in an act of true ninja stealth, launched their event by forgetting it existed. ToyFarce investigated...

Historically, Target's Summer Geek-Out event is a multi-week online celebration of collectibles, where new exclusives drop every Friday, each themed around a company, brand or franchise. It's also been known for... enthusiastically ignoring those themes and drop dates and having most products already out in the stores weeks before the event. But this year, the retail giant flipped the script and went with a bold new strategy: completely forgetting to promote the event!

Fans refreshing the Target website were greeted not with action figures, but with confusion. "Did I miss it?" one collector asked. Hours passed. Still nothing. Meanwhile, some of the event’s supposed drops, mainly Hasbro figures this week (Marvel Legends, Transformers and Star Wars Vintage Collection) were spotted quietly creeping onto the website earlier in the day. No banners. No announcements. Just a handful of listings uploaded.

By Saturday, Target finally remembered it was Geek-Out season and updated the website with the proper graphics and links, because nothing says "event launch" like fixing it 24 hours later! "This is the most Target thing Target has ever done!" said one seasoned toy hunter. "Next year, I’m just going to ignore the event entirely and let the figures find me. Wish me luck!"

In the end, collectors still got their figures, somehow. But the launch? That was the real exclusive. One-of-a-kind. Never to be repeated... until next time?

More news at 11:00... Stay tuned for next Friday's drop, or don’t. Who knows?

[ucsf]

Even after a few days of silence they could have rebranded the event to "Target Week-Out"...

[ToyFarce]

On 6/9/2025 at 7:56 PM, ucsf said:

Even after a few days of silence they could have rebranded the event to "Target Week-Out"...

Haha yes! Target Week-Out was right there! Brilliant