Decades ago, it was a primetime showing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that told you spooky season was here — and that was on like Oct. 25 or something. Now, it’s the first sighting of a Spirit Halloween banner, hanging from what used to be a Barnes & Noble or a Kmart or a Babies “R” Us. They seem to pop up overnight — one day it’s not there and the next, BAM. (Or BOO.) You drive by and point it out to your kids like you’re showing them a horse on the side of the road. “Hey! Look! Spirit Halloween!” It’s Aug. 1.
Much like the spooky ghouls and ghosts inside of Spirit Halloween to purchase, the store has an ethereal quality. It’s interactive, it’s designed for people to walk around and engage with the products along with shopping, and it feels almost magical how it shows up out of nowhere. Families have seriously come to look for a Spirit Halloween banner as their official sign to celebrate all things spooky.
But… where do they come from? Unlike a Party City or a Michaels where Halloween things come up and down and the stores are always there, a Spirit Halloween is purely a seasonal experience (although you can shop year-round online). And in a world where you can find pretty much any seasonal thing that you want to watch, eat, or hear 365 days a year, Spirit Halloween really feels special.
Short of walking into my own local Spirit Halloween — where my husband and I take our three daughters every year for a night of trying out all the decor and getting distracted in the Zombie Babies section before eating Mexican food in the restaurant across the parking lot — I spoke with Nikki Balles, senior director of PR and brand image at Spirit Halloween, to figure out some common questions about the mega-brand. Like, hey, what’s up with all the abandoned strip malls? And what do you do with all the leftover inflatable chicken costumes at the end of the year?
Spirit Halloween’s Origin Story
Founded in 1983 at the Castro Valley Mall in Castro Valley, California, the origin story of Spirit Halloween fits the brand perfectly. Founder Joe Marver had his own boutique, and after spotting long lines coming out of the mall’s Halloween store — and realizing that October is a historically slow retail month — Marver turned his own boutique into a Halloween store, essentially creating the first Spirit Halloween.
In 1999, Spirit Halloween was purchased by Spencer Gifts (yes, the place where you used to go look at the black light posters and Marilyn Manson T-shirts) and grew to become the largest Halloween retailer in North America. This 2024 Halloween season, there are 1,525 Spirit Halloween locations.
How Spirit Halloween Location Scouting Works
There are a million memes — and now a Saturday Night Live skit — about the unique Spirit Halloween phenomenon of taking over an empty store or center of a strip mall and turning it into a legit Halloween Town for a season. But it really is a little more strategic than just hanging the banner out front.
Spirit Halloween has a year-round team whose entire purpose is to work out the logistics of real estate and operations for each upcoming season. The team is able to build, merchandise, hire, and operate 1,525 stores — and then break it all down at the end of the season. It’s honestly impressive, and about 35% of these stores are used as repeat locations.
But here’s a nice thing about Spirit Halloween if you’re one of these people who thinks the brand is ruining a future business’s plans: There is a clause in every Spirit Halloween contract that stipulates if the property management renting the space to Spirit Halloween has someone show up and want to actually purchase the location for their own business, the property development company is allowed to do that and break the rental contract with Spirit Halloween. They’re not squatters, y’all. They’re just looking for a place to put their animatronics and help you celebrate Halloween.
But Balles tells me that the visibility of a location is truly what’s most important, which is why you find Spirit Halloweens in lifestyle centers, strip malls, and more high-traffic areas where you can find other national retailers.
And because the store is purely dedicated to Halloween, they are one of the few retailers where you can still expect to find Halloween decor and costumes late in the season. For so many people, having that extra time is paramount — not everyone can afford to buy their costumes and decor months in advance — and Spirit Halloween is different in that they keep a very strong stock up until the actual holiday itself, and they carry over inventory from year to year. There’s no major product liquidation happening on the leftover vampire fangs and Beetlejuice decor.
The employees are temporary as well. Balles says that the brand looks to hire over 50,000 seasonal employees, and that the hiring and training process is in full swing each year by the first week of June.
Costumes, Decorations, and More
One of the things about Spirit Halloween is that it has everything. This is done on purpose. Spirit Halloween isn’t meant to just be the costume store or the spooky store or the budget-friendly store — it’s the Halloween store — and they have a dedicated year-round team who live and breathe Halloween, even when the banners are down.
Even their top trending costumes and decor items for the year vary. Balles shares that this year, Spirit Halloween is seeing new movies trending in the costume space as more people dress up in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Inside Out 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine looks. But viral moments are also a major trend, and Spirit Halloween has found an increased interest in costumes based on things like Skibidi Toilet, The Amazing Digital Circus, and even the incredibly popular “mob wife aesthetic” that played out on social media earlier this year.
As far as decor goes, popularity rests pretty heavily with the animatronics. You know, the ones with all of the “TRY ME” buttons that either delight you or scare the pants off of you. Spirit Halloween has found that some of their most popular animatronics are also ones licensed through movies and TV, including Emily and Victor from Corpse Bride, as well as Spirit Halloween’s own Nibbles the Clown and Towering Tallulah. (No thank you, please.)
And if you’ve wondered just how deeply fun it must be to design these kinds of things, take a look at the product descriptions online. Every animatronic from Spirit Halloween has an intense backstory, and even the infamous Zombie Babies have names like Snackin’ Steve and Gutsy Gwen (also with backstories).
Sweet, Sweet Charity
If you’ve been in your local Spirit Halloween, chances are you’ve been asked to make a donation to Spirit of Children, and if you have, you’ve been asked to ring a large purple cowbell to let everyone know you’ve made a difference.
Because while Spirit Halloween is all about the eeks and shrieks, they’ve also dedicated their legacy to making hospitals less scary for kids and their families, Balles says. Through Spirit of Children, which started in 2006, Spirit Halloween has raised $127 million for more than 160 partnered hospitals across the U.S. and Canada, with 100% of the funds raised providing critical funding for those hospitals’ Child Life departments. This year, their goal is to raise more than $17 million.
In addition to fundraising, Spirit of Children also hosts events in partnered hospitals. By donating costumes (the kids get to pick their favorites), treat bags, and Halloween activities, Spirit of Children helps kids in hospitals still celebrate Halloween.
Spirit Halloween has an almost cult-like following, and Balles says that’s definitely come up more over the last few years. While the brand has been growing since 1983, Halloween has become an even more commercialized, season-long holiday — it’s not just one day a year anymore.
Who are you, Spirit Halloween? A real gem, I say.
