Treat or Trick?

"After candy, the second biggest Halloween money-spinners are costumes. The market for Halloween costumes is estimated as being worth between $1 billion and $1.5 billion. In 1999 the Second Annual American Express Retail Index on Halloween Shopping reported that 78% of children planned to wear a costume while 28% of adults planned to dress up too. The National Costumers Association survey of costume shops reported that October sales average more than 30% of annual sales...

...Halloween is increasingly becoming a festival for adults as well as children. Many Haunted Attractions are aimed squarely at adult audiences and grown ups are rediscovering the joy of dressing up in costume and partying.

The New York Village Halloween Parade is the Mount Everest of Halloween events. Over two million people come to watch and participate in the festivities which involve more than 30 thousand costumed folk, dozens of giant puppets and stiltwalkers, 38 marching bands playing music from around the world and a phantasmagoria of jugglers, dancers and street performers...

...The secret history of Halloween is a weird and tangled web with many cultures and faiths meeting and mingling to spawn a hybrid holiday. It has been in turn a religious and a secular festival and has come full circle to re-discover its roots as a life affirming celebration. Its rites, rituals and traditions have never been carved in stone and have developed and evolved through every generation - so that Halloween has always been an engaging contemporary experience."

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