Americans plan to spend a record-breaking $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, with expenditures split almost evenly between costumes ($4.4 billion), decorations ($4.3 billion) and candy ($4.1 billion). Participation is at an all-time high too: 74% of people say they will celebrate, up from 69% in 2016, when spending totaled $8.4 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. 

Consumers participating in the holiday will shop primarily at discount stores (39%) and online (27%), but a growing number— 32% —will head to a specialty Halloween or costume store, like Spirit Halloween. With over 1,575 pop-up locations this season, it is positioned to capture demand from the 42% decorating their homes and the 50% dressing up. Spending on pet costumes alone will reach $0.9 billion and more consumers are investing in costumes they can repurpose for other occasions throughout the year.

“For many Halloween fans, visiting Spirit has become an annual tradition and the unofficial start of the season,” said CEO Steven Silverstein in a statement. “From our immersive in-store experience and industry-leading animatronics to exclusive costumes and one-of-a-kind décor, there’s something for every Halloween fan to discover.”

Early Jump On The Season

Easter may be the second-largest commercial holiday after Christmas—Easter spending reached $24.9 billion this year—but Halloween’s influence keeps growing. What was once a late-October event now starts in summer with “Summerween” celebrations in July and August, including spooky pool-side parties, scary movie nights, candy bowls, pumpkin carving, costumes and Halloween-inspired decorations. 

Summerween caught the popular imagination after being mentioned in a 2012 episode of Disney’s Gravity Falls series.  It has spread across social media and helps build anticipation for the official Fall holiday. “As soon as it starts to get a little chilly, consumers say they get into the spirit and want to decorate,” NRF’s vice president of industry and consumer insights Allison Zeller said. 

That enthusiasm is pushing consumers to shop earlier. Half of consumers participating in the holiday this year say they will shop before October, compared with only 34% in 2016—and for 37% of all early shoppers, Halloween is their favorite holiday. 

Halloween Spirit is there for Summerween and early Halloween shoppers. The retailer operates online year-round, begins hiring more than 52,000 seasonal associates in June and opens its pop-up stores starting August 1, with closures in early November. 

Expanding the Halloween Experience

Missing from the NRF’s Halloween spending forecast is consumer participation in Halloween-themed experiences—sure to be big this year with Halloween falling on a Saturday. 

More consumers are maximizing the season’s thrills and chills by visiting ticketed haunted houses and theme parks staged for the occasion, going on ghost tours, picking pumpkins or getting lost in corn mazes at local farms, and attending psychic fairs. Others will be booking overnight stays in reputedly haunted B&Bs and hotels or spending a long weekend in authentic haunted places, such as Salem, MA; Gettysburg, PA; Sleepy Hollow, NY; and New Orleans.    

Spirit Halloween isn’t letting the desire for real-life spooky experiences pass it by. This year’s stores will feature a walk-through in-store experience called “Camp Harbor Lake,” inspired by campfire ghost-story traditions and 80s horror classics, like Friday the 13th. 

“Walking into a Spirit Halloween store is in and of itself a Halloween experience,” shared Silverstein in a Knowledge at Wharton podcast. “It’s immersive. It appeals to your five senses. It puts you into a Halloween mood—it’s a joy and a heck of a lot of fun.”

Moving on Animatronics

This year’s Camp Harbor Lake experience will spotlight Spirit’s growing range of animatronic decorations, including a Michael Meyers figure from the Halloween film franchise for $350. 

The latest animatronics don’t just move and make noise, some have embedded technology that can respond to conversations, along with Bluetooth-enabled audio controls and LED lighting effects. Spirit Halloween guides customers through the purchase process with ratings for those suited to outdoor display and its Zombie Tech Squad provides assembly help and troubleshooting.

Animatronics are gaining traction in both the Christmas and the Halloween decorations market. With prices starting around $100 and climbing well above that, the category is poised to lift Spirit Halloween’s annual revenue, which remain hidden because the company is privately held. But all indications suggest its business is quite good. 

Outlier In The Retail World

Spirit Halloween’s pop-up business model is an outlier in the retail ecosystem. No other retailer of its size and scope operates entirely through temporary stores. Tennessee-based Halloween Express imitates the format with about 200 stores in 13 states under a franchise model and like Spirit, it operates online year-round—but it is more imitator than innovator.  

Founded in 1983, Spirit Halloween has always followed a seasonal pop-up model. Spencer Gifts acquired the company in 1999 and now operates as Spencer Spirit Holdings. The parent company has long been dependent upon seasonal sales, but its recent acquisition of some 900 Hot Topix, BoxLunch and Her Universe stores from Sycamore Partners—a deal valued at $350 million—will bolster its year-round revenue stream.

Spencer Spirit Holdings is also extending its holiday spirit into Christmas. After testing the concept in 2024 by holding over 10 Spirit Halloween leases and transforming them into Spirit Christmas stores, it expanded to 30 Christmas stores in 2025. 

Plans for 2026 have yet to be announced, but given the strength of its pop-up model, the company is likely to move quickly once Halloween wraps. There are always mall and shopping center landlords eager to fill empty spaces and the bigger the space, the more incentive they have to bring Spirit in.

Flexibility is the key. Spirit Halloween has no standard store format and can work with the bare bones of any retail box—from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet—setting up shop in as little as 30 to 40 days. 

It aims for stores in high-visibility locations including malls, strip centers, free-standing stores and downtown locations. Axios reports that this year’s preferred “zombie” store locations include abandoned Joann (153 stores), Big Lots (103), Party City (100) and Rite Aid (88) stores. 

“They can pay fairly decent rent for these locations,” said Anjee Solanki, Colliers’ national director of retail services. Nicole Larson, who manages the firm’s retail research, added, “They’ve really proven the model. It’s now become more of a welcome tenant.”

Halloween’s Cultural Surge

Spirit Halloween has earned its place in the retail pantheon—not just for the amazing feat of opening 1,575 stores in a little over a month, but because it caught on early and has followed, if not helped shape, the growing celebration of Halloween. What was just a single day of costumes and trick-or-treating has become a true seasonal holiday. 

“Halloween is definitely taking much deeper roots across many different demographics,” Silverstein observed. “It’s becoming a universal experience that everybody seems to be looking for, and it seems to happen at just the right time when the leaves are turning and it’s getting crisp. Halloween is on everybody’s mind then.” 

“More and more people are participating in Halloween whether decorating, going to parties or parades. It’s such a fun holiday and there are no gifts involved,” he added.

Except, of course, for the $4.1 billion Americas will spend on candy—the prize for all the kids trick-of-treating in the neighborhood and at the growing number of “trunk-of-treat” events,  essentially Halloween tailgating parties where children go car-to-car collecting candy in parking-lot parties organized by churches, schools and local community groups. 

And here’s one interesting NRF factoid to close with: while 96% of people celebrating Halloween this year plan to buy candy, only 61% plan to give it out. So many folks will stay behind closed doors, munching on their own candy while watching their favorite spooky movie—make mine the 1963 classic The Haunting.