Summerween: How Las Vegas stays ‘spooky all year’
Shadi Sabra, who has worked at his parents’ party store in south Las Vegas for five years, said the store starts focusing on Halloween after July Fourth.
Tiffany Ellinger owns a store in southwest Las Vegas called the Halloween Emporium and Haunted Tea Room, which has the phrase “spooky all year” written across its front door. Ellinger said she regards July 5 as the start of Halloween season.
In 2023, the Retail Association of Nevada, which projects Halloween spending each year, estimated that Nevada consumers would spend around $197 million on Halloween goods. The association’s 2024 projections will probably be released in early October, though consumers already are finding Halloween merchandise on store shelves.
Michelle Schepens was shopping with her mother at a southwest Las Vegas Michaels store on Tuesday and browsing the Halloween decorations featured prominently at the front of the store.
Schepens said she is glad that stores sell Halloween supplies during the summertime because she likes putting out decorations early to prolong the season.
“I don’t like the fun Halloween stuff, but I like the scary stuff,” Schepens said.
One of the six aisles of Party Vegas, the store where Sabra works, overflowed with Halloween decorations and costumes last week. The store was selling clown noses for $1.99 and police batons for $2.99. A skeleton witch doctor hat was going for $32.99.
About 60 percent of the store’s space will be dedicated to Halloween goods when it gets closer to Oct. 31, according to Sabra.
Sabra said he thinks many people prepare early for the holiday to gain an edge over neighbors in the competition for best neighborhood Halloween decorations.
Ellinger, whose house is decorated with Halloween goods year round, said her store caters to people like herself who love Halloween and spooky stuff.
“There’s plenty of us out there,” Ellinger said. “It’s not just me.”
The busy time of year for the Halloween Emporium and Haunted Tea Room starts in June and ends around September, Ellinger said.
“October is busy but not as busy because there’s more competition,” she said.
On Thursday, Spirit Halloween’s flagship store in New Jersey opened its doors. At least six Spirit Halloween locations in the Las Vegas Valley are set to open sometime in August, according to the company’s website.
Juliana Leung, who was shopping with Roy Yim at a Michaels on South Decatur Boulevard on Thursday, said the store’s Halloween supplies looked “pretty cute.” Leung said she won’t begin shopping for Halloween supplies until the fall.
Yim said people who keep Halloween decorations up year round are “just a little odd.”
Celebrating ‘Summerween’
A TikTok trend has been giving people another reason to buy Halloween goods this summer.
Over the past few months, a mashup of the Pet Shop Boys’ song “West End Girls” and the audio from a scene in a TV show when characters discuss a holiday called “Summerween” has been spreading on the platform.
In the TV show — “Gravity Falls,” an animated mystery series from Disney that premiered in 2012 and ran until 2016 — residents of the fictional town of Gravity Falls love Halloween so much that they celebrate it twice a year, according to Gravity Falls Wiki.
On Summerween, which falls on the second to last Friday of June, the residents use jack-o’-melons instead of jack-o’-lanterns, since pumpkins are not ripe during the summer.
Those who’ve spread the mashup have shared videos of carved watermelons, ice cream bars cut into the shape of coffins and orange, fruity beverages surrounded by Halloween decorations — inspiring others to host Summerween parties throughout the summer.
@sheri_wilson_ Who’s planning a Summerween party? 🎃 only 131 days left till Halloween! 🍂 #summerween #halloweencountdown #halloween #spookyseason #fallaesthetic #movienight ♬ Hauntina Summerween – Hauntina
Marla Stafford, a UNLV marketing professor who studies consumer behavior, compared Summerween to Christmas in July.
A second Christmas celebration on July 25, Christmas in July was popularized by marketers who wanted people to buy Christmas goods early and often, according to Stafford.
What’s interesting about Summerween, Stafford said, is individuals on TikTok — not marketers — have popularized the holiday.
Nonetheless, marketers certainly take notice of things like Summerween, Stafford said.
Party City is now selling thousands of items at discounted prices in a Summerween clearance sale. And Summerween apparel can be bought on Amazon.
“Businesses latched onto it because businesses are going to latch onto anything that’s going to sell a product,” Stafford said. “I don’t mean that in a negative way because actually what businesses are doing is meeting consumer wants.”
Contact Peter Breen at pbreen@reviewjournal.com. Follow @breenreports on X.