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What used to be an unofficial holiday for children is now a multi-billion dollar industry, with grown-ups buying costumes and decorating their houses. That’s good news for retailers, and the Inland region appears to be getting it share of the pie.
There’s a day on the calendar that’s fast approaching that will be celebrated by adults and children alike, and in the process will pump billions of dollars into the economy.
No, not Christmas.
Halloween.
What was once a night reserved strictly for kids and trick-or-treating has been co-opted by the grown-ups, so much so that Halloween has become a major event for a lot of U.S. retailers. Not as big as Christmas, but big enough to matter.
“Maybe it’s s the millennials wanting to relive the glory days of their youth, I don’t know,” said Jordan Levine, senior economist at the UC Riverside Center for Economic Development. “It’s hard to define something like that. I just know that a lot of older people still like to celebrate Halloween.”
Yes, they do.
The National Retail Federation in Washington, D.C., estimates that about 157 million Americans will celebrate Halloween this year. That includes 80 percent of all millennials, generally defined as anyone born between 1982 and 1994, or way beyond the trick-or-treating age.
Total spending this year on Halloween is expected to top $6.9 billion, with the average U.S. consumer likely to spend $74 on candy, costumes, decorations and the like. That’s down a few dollars from 2014, but it’s still a solid number.
The other major retail trade association, the International Council of Shopping Centers in New York, reported similar results in its 2015 Halloween survey: 79 percent of the consumers the council questioned said they expect to make at least one Halloween purchase this year, up from 74 percent last year.
Also, three quarters of U.S. households said they expect to spend about as much on Halloween items this year as they did last year, according to the council.
All of those numbers make sense to Amanda Hanzel, an assistant manager at Party Plus in Redlands. The store at 1801 Orange Tree Lane, which is open all year, is doing a solid Halloween business so far this year and expects to finish strong as Oct. 31 approaches, Hanzel said.
Star Wars and various super heroes, including Superman, Batman and Captain America, are among the more popular costumes this year, Hanzel said.
The store also sells a fair amount of outdoor decorations, which have become especially popular in the last few years, Hanzel said.
“It’s been a good year so far, and it’s probably going to be a little stronger this year than the last few years because Halloween falls on a Saturday,” Hanzel said. “Anytime [Oct. 31] falls on a Friday or a Saturday, sales go up a little bit, So we expect to finish strong.”
The Enchanted Attic in San Bernardino, which rents costumes all year, mostly for Halloween and theatrical productions, is doing better this Halloween season than it has the past few years, co-owner Paula Bailey said.
“Halloween used to be 75 percent of our business, now it’s maybe 35 percent, but it’s still important,” said Bailey, who owns the business at 25899 Base Line St. with her mother Fern. “I think the Internet changed that. It’s made it a lot easier for people to find the costume they’re looking for.”
Besides “Star Wars”, this year’s popular costumes include Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp’s character from “Pirates of the Caribbean”
and 1920’s-era flapper clothing based on the 2013 movie “The Great Gatsby”, Bailey said.
“The economy is getting a bit stronger and people are getting back to work, which means they have a little more money to spend,” Bailey said. “That’s important for a business like ours because our costumes aren’t cheap. They range from $35 to $85 each. If you’re worried about where your next dinner is coming from, you probably aren’t going to spend your money with us.”
All Halloween retailers will get a boost from the calendar this year, Bailey said.
“We always get a lot of business on the Saturday before Halloween, because that’s when people have their parties,” Bailey said. “That’s true even when Halloween falls on a Saturday, like it does this year. We get a lot of business on the 24th when that happens.”
Although no one keeps an aggregate of Halloween sales in the Inland Empire, the stronger economy should translate into stronger sales locally just as it will nationally, Levine said.
“Employment is up, so I would think that people would be willing to spend a little bit more this year than they did last year,” Levine said.
The Inland region doesn’t lack for Halloween stores: A Google search of the Inland Empire identifies 11 temporary Halloween stores in the region, most of which opened for business around Labor Day. That figure doesn’t include the year-round party and costume stores that also sell Halloween merchandise.
Halloween City opened in late August at 27300 Eucalyptus Ave. in Moreno Valley and saw its business heat up about two weeks later, said Nadine Moreno, a sales associate at the store.
“We’re selling a lot of Scream masks, a lot of Robin Hood costumes for men and women and a lot of stuff from “The Descendants,” Moreno said, the latter being the live-action musical film that premiered on The Disney Channel in July and is now set for a sequel.
“Star Wars” merchandise remains popular, but unlike some other items – costumes from “The Descendants,” for example – it has yet to sell out, Moreno said.
As long as children like to trick-or-treat, and as long as adults keep holding costume parties and setting up haunted houses in the front yard, Halloween will keep pumping money into the economy, Levine said.
“Whether people will ever spend a higher percentage of their income on it, I don’t know,” Levine said. “I just know they will keep celebrating Halloween.”
