Halloween In The 1980s

However, Halloween also grew increasingly commercialized in the 1980s, when its popularity among adults increased. In 1982, with the launch of Halloween seasonal shops, extravagant decorations received a significant boost, and they later made an appearance in pharmacy stores and supermarkets as well. In an effort to reverse his October slump, Joseph Marver, a garment store owner from San Francisco, decided to start selling costumes that year. Little did he know, the company took off. His sales skyrocketed once he leased a temporary booth in a mall the next year. Spirit Halloween Stores were formed from this idea; Marver sold them to Spencer Gifts in 1999. By 2011, they had more than 900 locations. Homeowners started showing the same interest in Halloween decorations that they had previously exhibited

Halloween decorations cost about $1 billion in 2001, with approximately 30% of American consumers spending money on them by 1999. Miniature copies of the mazes that started popping up around Halloween in the 1970s started appearing in many of these house designers' yards, and instead of simply making a casual display, they were putting on real walk-through presentations. Professional labyrinth makers emerged in tandem with homeowners' more ornate holiday decorations. Another change to Halloween was on the horizon, which few anticipated in the 1980s or even the early 1990s. Halloween would still be observed in the twenty-first century with festivities, yard decorations and trick-or-treating, but it would also have grown into a worldwide business. Chapter 7 Origins of Haunted Attractions Although its precise beginnings in the 1930s, when parents were eager to distract the attention of mischievous boys, likely gave rise to events such as "trails of terror," the "haunted attractions industry" as we know it today certainly had its rocky