Halloween sales more treat than trick this season

The economic goblins haven't scared most consumers away from Halloween shops and attractions this year, according to local businesses that target the holiday.

A half-dozen Halloween, party and costume stores reported that sales were steady or up from last year.

"In challenging economic times, people tend to gravitate towards having affordable fun," said D. Nachnani, owner of Harygul's Halloween Planet, which sells costumes from $10 to $1,500.

However, ticket sales at the region's largest Halloween attraction, Hunt Club Farm's Halloween Festival and Haunted Hayride in Virginia Beach, have been a bit frightening, said owner Randi Vogel.

They're down about 20 percent from last year, she said, and food vendors have also taken a hit.

"People are still coming," she said. "They're still looking for fun things to do with their family."

At Harygul's, which has four stores in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake and an online business, Nachnani said it was too early to predict final sales figures. But so far, he said, they are up in the "single digits" from last year.

He has seen big gains in home-decor items, such as fake spiderwebs and fog machines, and adult costumes. Among the hottest: movie characters, like The Joker in "The Dark Knight," and "sexy" costumes, such as a skimpy, form-fitting Cinderella or French maid.

The growth in both home items and costumes, he said, shows that more people are hosting or attending home parties. "My educated guess is, if you can't go out of town and you're not necessarily going to an event, you're probably going to a party close to home."

Halloween business being more treat than trick this year also attests to the desire to escape reality, business owners said.

"They want to have a good time," said Catherine DeMartino of Halloween Express, on Laskin Road in Virginia Beach. "They want to pretend the economy is not going to affect them as much as it has."

Timing hasn't hurt, either. This year, Halloween falls on a Friday. Last year, it was on Wednesday.

"When it's in the middle of the week, it's not as big of a, quote-unquote, event," said Marcy Miller, who owns UniquelyLeo's Ltd., a gift shop in Suffolk. This year, "more people are likely to have parties because it falls on a weekend."

Josh Xenakis plans to go to a party tonight dressed in a beer-bottle costume. He bought it for $30 Thursday at the Harygul's store in Pembroke Mall in Virginia Beach.

"Everybody works a lot," said Xenakis, 27, of Virginia Beach. "You've got to have fun."

In a survey released last month, the National Retail Federation predicted that spending for Halloween this year would total $5.77 billion, up 14 percent from its $5.07 billion forecast for 2007.

"Consumers enjoy splurging on Halloween," said Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the federation. "It's not a gift-giving holiday. It's no frills and relatively inexpensive."

Hunt Club Farm sold about 14,000 tickets during the first half of October, compared with 18,500 tickets in the same period last year, Vogel said.

In addition, the festival has been hit with high prices for diesel fuel and increased labor costs, triggered by changes over the summer in the minimum wage, she said.

But Vogel is hoping that the bottom line will improve by the end of the Halloween season.

James Johnson, owner of Nightmare Mansion in Virginia Beach, shares her hopes. October ticket sales for the boardwalk attraction have also been slightly down from last year.

"Real life is getting scarier all the time," Johnson said. "It's hard to compete."

Tonight, though, "could prove to balance everything out when it's all said and done," he said. "It's something you can't tell until Halloween's over with."

A newer attraction, Franklinstein's Haunted Hayride and Corn Maze in Franklin, has bucked the trend, seeing a slight increase in ticket sales, said owner Frank Radosevich.

The owner of Novelties Unlimited, a party-goods store on 21st Street in Norfolk, also expects to end up with a bump in Halloween sales. Betty Hermann said hot items at her store include makeup and costumes of pirates and political candidates.

"We've sold out of Obama and McCain twice," she said.

Novelties is open year-round. Holiday-specific stores like Harygul's Halloween Planet tend to open in September and close shortly after the holiday, though Nachnani said the Hilltop store is open on occasional weekends through the year.

At Harygul's, even sales of pet outfits have risen, he said. Dogs can be dressed up as Batman or a bumblebee in outfits from $10 to $30, he said.

For humans, the most expensive wardrobes cost $1,500. They are replicas of the costumes of the stormtroopers in the "Star Wars" movies and the soldiers in the "Halo 3" video game. Nachnani said people had bought both kinds.

The financial squeeze, however, took a toll on John Foster's holiday spending.

Last year, he bought a Cowardly Lion costume for about $100. At Harygul's at Pembroke on Thursday, he merely got a $15 "Rasta" cap, which he plans to wear to work today.

But Foster, a 35-year-old chef from Virginia Beach, never considered forgoing a Halloween purchase altogether.

"I just think it's a fun holiday," he said. "It lets you get away for a day and forget about the economy for a while."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com

Kathy Adams, (757) 446-2583, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com