The second 31 Days of Denton Halloween brought hundreds of thousands of people to the downtown Square in October.
Dustin Sternbeck, the city’s chief spokesperson, said about 883,000 people visited the Square over the course of this event, an increase from last year. Sales tax revenue information is not yet available.
“It’s only year two,” he said. “We have the Halloween Capital of Texas designation for 10 years. Every year, we’re going to continue to try to build off of previous years.”
Sternbeck said the city is still gathering data on where those visitors came from, but he said tourists came to Denton from at least 42 states last month.
The city plans to continue building Halloween festivities around two major October events: the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival and Denton’s Day of the Dead Festival. The city also plans to expand programming in the Big Top Tent throughout the month, Sternbeck said. The circus tent set up on Oak Street is the home of the musical Cirque du Horror, but other events took place under the big top this October.
Sternbeck said the Halloween festivities are designed to support local businesses.
“[Many downtown businesses] saw a significant increase in foot traffic, and they had great sales numbers, which is really kind of at the heart of what inspired us to do this in the first place,” Sternbeck said. “[Our goal] was to increase traffic into our local businesses and to showcase the talented artist community. I think we were able to accomplish both of those this year.”
At vintage clothing store Old Bear on the Square, the manager, who prefers to be identified by the last name Neff, noticed an immediate increase in traffic starting in late September.
“Halloween night was really, really insane,” Neff said. “I don’t know if that was expected. It was a lot of people. Very chaotic, but it was a lot of fun.”
The store had extended hours during October and showcased fall and Halloween merchandise. Neff said that overall, customers were excited about the festivities and were polite.
Because Old Bear does not have a public restroom and many October visitors came in looking for one, Neff suggested adding more public restrooms as an improvement for next year.
Sternbeck said the city has gotten useful feedback and is looking to make improvements next year, especially in terms of parking.
He said organizers prioritized spreading out art installations and other attractions to expand the footprint outside the main Square. One of these attractions was a free Halloween maze on McKinney Street near City Hall. It saw more than 54,000 visitors.
Interactive phone booths were set up in front of three businesses outside the main Square: Denton County Brewing Co. on McKinney Street, Hemlock Fox on Austin Street and The Plot Twist on Oak Street just off the Square.
Plot Twist owner Dawn Conner said her romance book bar saw a substantial increase in foot traffic in the first two weeks of October, but it didn’t hold up through the rest of the month.
“As far as our revenue and our sales, we didn’t see an increase [during October], although we did see a lot of new people,” Conner said. “So maybe not all of those translated to additional business.”
The Plot Twist hosted several spooky events and extended its business hours during October.
Plot Twist manager Darci Middleton, who is Conner’s daughter, said the Spooky Spirits Stroll — a cocktail crawl where participants stopped into several downtown businesses to try a variety of Halloween-inspired drinks — was particularly successful for them.
Conner said she was glad the city added an attraction in the area but hopes that next year the businesses in the surrounding area can coordinate events to draw in more people.
Sternbeck encouraged Denton residents to submit feedback about the festivities to the Denton Halloween website.
“We want to thank the entire community,” Sternbeck said. “The people of Denton open their arms and welcome folks from across the country. We’re able to showcase the downtown area of our city and what makes Denton special.”