As a Petition to Change the Date of Halloween for ‘Safety’ Reasons Gains Momentum, It May Have a Different Agenda

I originally wasn’t going to write about this story because this isn’t the first time there has been an attempt to move Halloween. Last year I shared how a Connecticut radio station with the help of some local politicians were trying to get the holiday moved, but that petition only reached 789 of the 1,000 signatures needed to be considered a success on MoveOn.org. This latest petition, which was actually started last year as well, has actually gained some serious momentum in recent days.

I have alerts setup in my email to tell me when new news stories about Halloween show up online, and over the last week as news outlets have begun covering the story I have watched the number of supporters in headlines greatly increase in just a matter of days. Earlier this week the numbers were 60,000, then 75,000, and the latest I saw was 80,000. At the time of this writing, over 97,000 people have signed the petition.

The petition was created by the Halloween & Costume Association, a non-profit industry group whose mission is to promote and grow the safe celebration of Halloween. In their change.org petition, they cite 3,800 Halloween-related injuries each year, and a number of other Halloween safety best practices that people don’t follow as a reason for moving the holiday. Oh, and because of Millennials.

The strangest part about this petition is that it’s built around the idea of safety. The petition has no true description and instead just lists Halloween safety statistics. It almost suggests that by moving the holiday it will somehow be safer. But let’s look at some of the statistics they cite:

• 82% of parents don’t use high visibility aids on their costume
• 63% of children don’t carry a flashlight while they are tick-or-treating
• 65% of parents don’t discuss Halloween safety with their children
• 70% of parents don’t accompany their children trick-or-treating

All of these statistics are tied to parental behavior. How does moving a holiday to Saturday change what all of these parents are doing? It doesn’t. I’ll give them that maybe moving it to Saturday would decrease that last number to some degree. Obviously having it on a weekend could free up more parents to take their kids trick or treating, but you also have to consider the ages of trick or treaters and really only young children have to be accompanied by an adult as most older kids will trick or treat with friends in groups.

In my opinion, this move isn’t about safety as much as it is about the bottom line for the Halloween industry. Before a recent name change, the Halloween & Costume Association was known as the Halloween Industry Association. The association represents industry retailers, manufacturers, and other Halloween industry professionals and is the body behind the annual Halloween & Party Expo.

In 2018 the association kicked off a major consumer initiative “to promote Halloween and year-round costuming.” Citing their consumer initiative as their “most important effort” in a 2018 document. Adding, “The goal is to establish HIA as the voice of Halloween for consumers/general public and increase sales for our member companies.”

It doesn’t take a marketing or business genius to recognize that moving Halloween to a weekend has the potential to generate more dollars for the industry. A weekend holiday means more parties, more participation, and ultimately more spending on a holiday that was projected to reach $9 billion in spending last year according to the National Retail Federation.

While this petition is posted under the guise that it would somehow make Halloween safer, I think there are some ulterior motives to the initiative. My hunch is that if you had access to the data, Halloween spending would be down when the holiday is during the week and up when it falls on a weekend and the Halloween industry would likely want to see more consistent spending year to year.

The petition reason aside, as a parent I do see the appeal of a weekend Halloween. There is no rush to get home from work to get your kid ready for trick or treating, there’s no concern about your kid staying up late on a school night, and sure maybe you can let them go a little bit earlier so they aren’t out in the dark. But as a lifelong Halloween lover, I look forward to that 10/31 on the calendar. The date also has meaning in the holiday’s origins as it’s the date of Samhain, a Gaelic festival that inspired America’s Halloween traditions. So while moving it would make Halloween more convenient for some, let’s not ruin a good thing. Especially under the ruse of safety.