By Jacqui Parr
It was a long way from the Saturday Halloween the industry had been looking forward to at the start of the year, but according to reports it also seems that Halloween 2020 wasn’t the complete washout many feared it would be. With further Covid restrictions on the horizon, many consumers rushed to make the most of their last opportunity to celebrate for a while. PartyWorldwide.net spoke to a number of independent retailers across the UK to find out how the expectation around Saturday’s announcement affected those all-important last-minute sales.
Kate Moore, owner, Jollyjesters, Derby, UK
“On the Friday and Saturday sales perked up and so Halloween 2020 ended up better than I’d feared. I was doing appointments only, and booking each customer a 15-minute slot. Some needed less, but some over-ran, especially family groups.
We had people waiting outside in the rain but they were good-humoured about it, even did a verse of ‘Singing In The Rain’ at one point! Four customers an hour wasn’t anything like a normal Halloween of course, but working on my own and being able to give customers their own safe space in the shop it turned out that a 15-minute slot was pitched about right. In the end, Saturday takings were about the same as a normal non-Halloween Tuesday.
Without those last-minute sales it would have been dire. On the Wednesday I really did doubt whether it would be worth opening for the rest of the week, but luckily it picked up!
The news of an impending lockdown definitely helped last-minute sales. Our area went from Tier 1 to Tier 2 on Friday, so when the news leaked out on Fri/Sat that another lockdown was imminent, there was a definite ‘let’s party’ vibe.”
Kate Moore, owner, Jollyjesters, Derby
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