Spirit Halloween

During the Halloween season, Spirit operates over 1,600 store locations in North America. The Spirit Halloween website is open year-round, offering its in-store products online. The store carries decor manufactured by Gemmy Industries, Tekky Design, YJ, Seasonal Visions International, Crazy Create, NewRaySun, Party Time Latex Art And Crafts Factory, Tailuxe Artware, Seasons USA, Pan Asian Creations and more. Many decorations are exclusive to Spirit. In early summer Spirit Halloween typically puts out teaser videos on social media and YouTube to create excitement for new items. A few days later the videos are followed by another one officially revealing and announcing the item. The retailer makes use of vacant retail space. The stores typically operate for 60 to 90 days, opening sometime in early to mid-August and usually closing two or three days after Halloween. == History ==

Joe Marver created the Spirit Halloween business model, a pop-up store catering to Halloween revelers. A dress retailer, he replaced his store's usual merchandise with Halloween items in 1983 and named the store after his Spirit Women's Discount Apparel business. The following year, he opened the first year round location in the Castro Valley Village Shopping Center in 1984. He grew Spirit Halloween to 60 seasonal stores nationwide before it was acquired by Spencer Gifts in 1999. In October 2016, a store in Nebraska removed Native American costumes after the state's Indigenous community said they were irreverent to their culture. However, the corporate office ordered the costumes put back on the shelves, prompting a wider debate on cultural appropriation. On October 21, 2016, Health Canada recalled eight products from Spirit Halloween, for fire hazards and choking hazards. Despite promising to cease sales, 23 of its stores continued to sell products that had been recalled when Health Canada visited 45 stores across Canada. In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the company opened 1,400 stores. In 2022 and the following years, memes inspired by Spirit Halloween went viral on social media. The hashtag #SpiritHalloweenMeme was used to aggregate these memes. Spirit Halloween serves a Halloween consumer market estimated at $8.4 billion yearly, according to the National Retail Federation.. ==Spirit Christmas==

In October 2024, Spirit Halloween announced that it would pilot Christmas stores known as Spirit Christmas over the 2024 holiday season. It operated eight stores in the United States, one opening mid-October and the rest in November. Some of the stores were converted from Spirit Halloween locations. In 2025, Spirit Christmas expanded to 30 stores across the nation. These stores remain open until the end of the year, except on Christmas and Thanksgiving. In 1990, Spirit Halloween made an attempt for the Christmas market. The Christmas stores were discontinued after this year until Spencer Gifts acquired Spirit Halloween, of which they ran a Spirit Christmas in 2005 and 2006. == Spirit of Children ==

In 2006, Spirit launched a program called Spirit of Children to raise money in-store for children's hospitals. The program annually celebrates Halloween at hospital locations, supplying costumes and decorations for the events. Since 2007, Spirit of Children has raised over $29 million in donations. ==Film==

On April 11, 2022, it was announced that a film adaptation starring Christopher Lloyd and Rachael Leigh Cook was in development, with Strike Back Studios, Hideout Pictures, Particular Crowd and Film Mode Entertainment as co-producers, David Boag directing in his feature directorial debut, and Billie Bates writing. On July 31, 2022, the first teaser was released. The film was shot in Rome, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee. The film was released theatrically on September 30, 2022, before being released on video-on-demand (VOD) platforms on October 11, 2022. == See also ==