Monday, November 3, 2014

Economics of Halloween

Halloween is the second largest grossing Holiday behind Christmas. Americans usually spend 6.9 billion dollars a year on this holiday whether its costumes, decorations, or tickets for events. A historical event in Boise Idaho called "frightened Felons" is held only two nights and the staff is all volunteers. The event brings in nearly 1,300 people bringing in up to $30,000  just for those two nights. This is an extreme amount of income for this event and none of the profits go to labor. The event is put on by the historical state so I assume the money will go back into the state or the city its located. Farmers tend to create corn mazes to attract a population that wants a different scary experience. These farmers will bring in more money with the mazes than if they harvested and sold all their crops. The Halloween express is a giant store filled with almost all adult costumes and most being women costumes due their shopping needs are more extravagant then mens. These stores on average bring in $75-$100 per person who decides to actually purchase something and advertising is almost unnecessary because of their scarce competition and they have the absolute largest selection of costumes over anyone else. I think its interesting to see the numbers of how much money Americans spend on this holiday whether its a costume or attending an event.

http://arbiteronline.com/2014/10/30/economics-of-halloween-numbers-behind-spooky-scary/

5 comments:

  1. I am not very surprised by the large amount of money spent on Halloween. The reason companies can make so much money off of Halloween is because the demand for the products each year is so high. People know that it’s an expense they only have to pay once a year, so they are willing to pay decent money for what they want. Also, most people don’t want to wear the same costume in consecutive years, so they are looking to buy new costumes every year.

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  2. I'm not too surprised to see the amount of money that's spent on holidays. The economic benefits are usually the only reason for government endorsing these holidays. It's great that holidays bring people together and create a good time but they were created for the economic revenue.

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  3. I am also not surprised by the amount of money that is spent on Halloween. Holidays usually help boost the economy through an increase in consumer spending. I think it will be interesting to see if the recent improvements in the economy will continue as we enter the holiday season. An increase in consumer spending will further improve our economy, but that depends whether or not consumers do in fact increase their spending.

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  4. The $6.9 billion accounting for Halloween alone seems outrageous. Once October hits is when everyone's demand for Halloween related items increases, meaning purchases of costumes, haunted houses, decorations, etc. Although surprising, Adding $6.9 billion into our economy through consumer spending will benefit greatly. It will be interested to see the improvements as we head towards Christmas.

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  5. I know that Halloween brings in a lot of money, but I never knew it was to this extent. But I guess taking into account costumes, decorations and candy, the expenses add up. It is no doubt a benefit for the economy, for it raises GDP by a significant amount.

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