By Ed Avis
This year’s Halloween was supposed to be giant, since it falls on a full-moon Saturday. Then COVID interfered, and suddenly everyone is worried that Halloween will not be nearly what it should be. Well, the NCA can’t cure COVID, but we can help make Halloween a little better. To do that we are launching the Help Halloween Happen (HHH) campaign, which is designed to help boost Halloween sales for our members.
When we were planning this campaign, we had a couple of goals. First, we wanted to do something that would encourage people to enjoy a safe, socially distanced holiday. And second, we wanted to make sure that our Buyer Members -- independent costume retailers -- are recognized in their community as leading the Halloween events. There is already a strong "shop local" sentiment in the air this year because of COVID, and we want to build on that to support our members.
The HHH campaign is multi-pronged. The first element is the NCA Guide to a Safe Community Halloween. This guide will help our members work with their local municipalities to create fun, engaging and safe Halloween events. Regular trick-or-treating or Halloween dances might seem unsafe this year, but there are other events that can capture the spirit of the season without dangerous face-to-face contact. Key to this guide is that it will put our Buyer Members front and center - when local residents learn of these safe Halloween events, they will see that their local costume shop played a role. (Zagone Studios has already created some great ideas in this regard – click here to read about those.)
The second part of the campaign is some printed material that our Buyer Members can use to promote their business at Halloween. The exact form of this material depends on the budget we have for the campaign, but it likely will include reflective or fluorescent stickers the shops can hand out to customers to put on their costumes and customized posters the shops can distribute to promote the Halloween events they have helped create.
This campaign will help our Buyer Members and our Vendor Members since both groups benefit when more people buy costumes. Right now we’re asking Vendor Members for a small donation to fund the campaign – vendors who do so will be gratefully recognized in the Safe Halloween Guide, in the publicity surrounding the HHH campaign, and on the NCA web site. (Vendors, if you can help, please email Ed Avis at executivedirector@costumers.org)
Halloween will happen, of course, no matter what the virus is doing come late October. People will still want to dress up and decorate their homes. But we’re hoping that a little extra effort on our part can help make the holiday as profitable for costume businesses as possible this year.
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