Happy halloween holiday for high street

4th Nov 2009 A passion and truth by Tom

Photo by madmolecule

With another Halloween passing us by, the shops certainly weren’t ghost towns in the lead up to it, with Planet Retail predicting that the day will work out to be worth £235m to retailers in the UK, up from £195 last year. While it’s too soon to know what the exact impact has been, the supermarkets in particular did their best to ensure it was at the forefront of minds of customers.

While Halloween is enjoying increasing popularity, it surprised me the other day to realise that Bonfire night is upon us, and bar the odd bang outside in the evening and one or two signs outside shops proclaiming ‘Fireworks sold here’, I was in danger of not remembering the 5th of November. With Halloween being dangled in the front of the eyes of the consumer, its Autumn celebration rival is becoming more concealed from view. I remember bonfires, Guy Fawkes and sparklers being a big deal when I was young(er), but safety fears have placed restrictions on the availability of fireworks, and it would appear Halloween is the benefactor.

But it’s not the only reason why a Halloween party is becoming the fashionable thing to do. Celebrities used Twitter to show off their scary costumes this year, and the influence of the U.S. also cannot be ignored. The 31st of October has long been a key date of the social calendar in America, worth a staggering $5.7bn last year, and this culture seems to have crossed the pond and lead UK consumers to follow suit. Similarly retailers have taken a leaf out of the American book in pushing the event further, with Planet Retail’s Greg Hodge saying that “Retailers are dedicating more space to Halloween stock in the style of the U.S., and see it as a route to more revenue.”

Perhaps the fact that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year encouraged more people to hold a party and dress up, and the coveted escapism and ‘in-tertainment’ trends in the current difficult times will have played a part, but Halloween has been growing year on year for a while now, being worth just £12m in 2001. In fact, it is now the third biggest season behind Christmas and Easter. Therefore I think we can expect to see retailers placing more importance on Halloween next year, and, as the celebrity tweeters have shown, social networking will go hand in hand with it.

I better start planning my costume for next year.

Share ♥

Found in Trend watching