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Boo! It’s Halloween week and, if you’re in one of the cities on this little list from WalletHub, chances are you’ll have a spooktacular time.
Scary growth for the spookiest of holidays
All Hallow’s Eve has, in a relatively short time, exploded. Yes, it’s true that the holiday has been around for quite a long time, but it’s really only in the last few decades that it’s become a monster of a money-maker. Maybe that’s crass, but it’s also true.
This year, the spooky festival is expected to generate some 8.4 (wait for it) billion dollars in revenue. That’s a ton, but you probably knew that. What you might not have known is that it’s leaps and bounds above what the season turned in just last year! In 2015, Halloween made retailers $6.9 billion USD. That’s a hefty sum as well, but a difference of $1.5 billion in a year is massive.
It all goes to show that people are hungry for more than candy; they love this holiday. And it’s growing, getting more and more popular. Enter WalletHub and the point of this little tale.
The cities to be in for Halloween
Website Wallethub loves numbers. And when you combine the two elements, you get the numbers that equate to the best cities for Halloween. The site has compiled a bunch of facts and figures for you to peruse, which you can check here, but things boil down to a list of 20 towns. The collection of 18 metrics included stuff like “number of candy and chocolate stores per capita”, “average cost of a Halloween party ticket”, and “Halloween weather forecast.” So this is pretty wide-ranging and all-inclusive.
The fact that New York would be on there is kind of a foregone, but some the rest might surprise you. Personally, that number one pick is kind of a shocker. Scroll down to have a peek at the list in full… and get that candy bag ready, Halloween is officially one week out.
| Top 20 Cities for Halloween | |||||
| 1 | Santa Ana, CA | 11 | Irving, TX | ||
| 2 | New York, NY | 12 | St. Paul, MN | ||
| 3 | Jersey City, NJ | 13 | Anaheim, CA | ||
| 4 | Newark, NJ | 14 | El Paso, TX | ||
| 5 | Laredo, TX | 15 | Tampa, FL | ||
| 6 | Gilbert, AZ | 16 | Philadelphia, PA | ||
| 7 | Chula Vista, CA | 17 | Garland, TX | ||
| 8 | Plano, TX | 18 | Honolulu, HI | ||
| 9 | Chicago, IL | 19 | Fort Wayne, IN | ||
| 10 | Las Vegas, NV | 20 | Pittsburgh, PA | ||
Halloween Fun Facts
- $8.38 Billion – Projected Halloween-related spending in 2016 ($3.14 billion on costumes).
- $547.9 Million – Halloween candy sales (fourth biggest candy-selling holiday).
- $300+ Million – Annual revenue from ticket sales to haunted attractions (80 percent of which are charity-operated).
- 72 Percent – Share of parents who say they steal Halloween candy from their kids.
