With October comes a massive influx of Halloween-based business.

Indeed, shoppers spent $3.6 billion on Halloween costumes alone in 2022, and Halloween shopping is expected to continue to spike past pre-pandemic numbers.

A spooky and jolly time for many, local Halloween stores spend the fall preparing for the onslaught of business that comes throughout October.

“It ramps up every week throughout the month. Then — once November first hits — crickets,” Todd Belanger, owner of Lakewood Halloween and costume store, Disguises, said while surrounded by a massive inventory of an estimated 6,000 unique costumes.

But, if crickets invade the local stores post Oct. 31, something has to give. After all, Halloween stores have to survive for the following 11 months.

And while it’s rare to see any business focused on one holiday stay open year-round, costume, in fact, stores do.

“Any Halloween store with size has to have a second business,” Belanger said. “You can’t just survive on Halloween. You gotta have a thing.”

A year-long party

When Kevin Pohle teamed up with his business partner to purchase the Wizard’s Chest — a legendary Denver costume store stationed on Broadway — more than 20 years ago, he wasn’t in it for Halloween.

Pohle was a big board and tabletop gamer, something the Wizard’s Chest has profited on throughout its 40-year history.

The top floor of the store is stuffed with costumes, but the entire lower level is full of board games, puzzles and other game equipment — a facet Pohle says contributes to around half of the store’s yearly sales. The other half is based solely around the Halloween months.

He pointed to the other two heavy hitters in the locally owned Halloween store market, Disguises and Reinke Brothers in Littleton. All three stores have been around for more than 30 years. And here lies the secret to their survival — all three stores offer a niche other than Halloween costumes.

The Wizard’s Chest sells games, Disguises rents custom costumes to theater companies and schools, and Reinke Brothers has an on-site haunted house.

“We’re all competitors, but not really,” Pohle said. “We all have our own separate businesses. So, there’s a cooperation competition amongst the three of us.”

Belanger echoed the sentiment, calling the owners of both stores “great people.”

“Every costume store is a little different,” Belanger said. “No one can survive on Halloween alone.”

Disguises is one of the largest public theater stocks in the country, according to Belanger. The store spends most of the off-season creating costumes for local and national plays and selling high-quality costumes to people with alternative lifestyles, such as goth and renaissance festivals.

“There are professional pirates in town that come in for clothes. They take it seriously,” Belanger noted.

Another costume-based store, Crimson Rose Masquerade on South Broadway, sees around a quarter of its yearly income from Halloween. The rest comes from the handmade, anatomically correct corsets and other high-end “fantasy” attire.

“We have quite a few people that come in and get daily clothes from us. The weirdos, like us. The people that don’t quite fit in,” Crimson Rose Masquerade Owner Kitty Krell said.

Krell has been a corset maker for over 20 years. When she dislocated ribs due to a genetic condition, her doctor told her to keep wearing the corset to help them heal. She discovered that it helped her backpain and ribs.

“Since I have a medical background in corsetry, my relationship to how a corset functions is very different than other costume shops in the area,” Krell said.

Her mission at Crimson Rose Masquerade turned to making and selling corsets for all different uses — along with other locally created costumes and garments. Halloween just happened to come with the territory.

It’s in the holiday spirit

Local costume stores in the Denver region have no problem with each other — falling into their own business lanes with unique niches, such as games and corsets — but seasonal competition still looms.

Memes have been created, for example, about the swift arrival of Spirit Halloween, the seasonal store that seems to swoop in to every empty building across the country.

Spirit Halloween is currently the largest Halloween retailer in the country. Despite only opening its doors for two-to-three months a year, it has an estimated annual revenue of $1.1 billion, according to Zippia.

“I think about how big my business would be if they weren’t there,” Belanger joked about seasonal Halloween retailers, such as Spirit and other department stores.

Spirit stores pop up nationwide seasonally in vacant retail spaces. There are 24 locations in Colorado alone this season. And, with cheaper prices and national recognition, they compete with local costume giants during the busiest sales months.

But it may not be as teeth-gritting of a competition as some would believe.

“It’s not anything different than what we’ve dealt with on the game side for years. People can get games at Target and Wal-Mart, so we understand it,” Pohle said. “Can people get stuff elsewhere? Absolutely. We’re a small store. That’s the nature of it.”

All three of the stores note quality as the factor that put them easily above pop-up retailers. Stores like Spirit opt for affordable, mass-produced costumes for those just looking for a one-use outfit. The local stores offer higher-quality options, their operators said.

“Everything we carry is designed to actually last,” Krell said of Crimson Rose Masquerade. The store, Krell said, is a place for costume enthusiasts, not just disposable Halloween fits. “I have never made anything costume quality. I never will.”

Pohle said The Wizard’s Chest always chooses the deluxe quality of the licensed costumes.

“We have limited space, so we have to make that choice,” he said.

Belanger said people have the most options at Disguises.

“Let’s say you want to be Morticia from the Adams Family,” he said as an example. “I probably have six different bagged versions. You can also go out there and buy yourself a $300 dress and look awesome. Or, if you want to look incredible but don’t want to drop that kind of money, you can rent it for $100. That’s our whole Halloween spiel.”

“We want to have every possible option,” he added.

All three stores noted that mass-market retailers don’t step on their toes as much as some may believe. Their carved niches, quality and local backing help keep them above the competitors, they said.

“I don’t know enough about how things are made to make a judgement call on ethics, but I am not opposed to the big box stores in theory. At the end of the day, it’s just marketing for Halloween… There needs to be products at every price point,” Krell said.

“They help people get excited for Halloween,” Krell added. “And, if those people find out they really enjoy dressing up, they might want to up their game and come to us next year.”