I hate going there too, but they never open my phone and set it up for me. I tell them I'll do it at home and it's over pretty quickly. But since I'm switching from iPhone X to the Note9, I'll have to trade-in my iPhone X to offset some of the cost of the Note9. And then I'll have to transfer my texts and contacts from the iPhone to the Note9. So I'll have to set it up on release day in store. Ugh.
FWIW, last year, I went to a T-Mobile store on Note8 release day right when the store opened and there were no customers waiting in line. And that was the first Note after the Note7 fiasco, but people may have been still apprehensive about the device. Maybe things'll be different this year. Who knows. The T-Mo associate told me people wanted the iPhone X and had no interest in the Note devices.