Many residents have long gone all out to celebrate Halloween, but this was the first year the city made it official with 31 Days of Denton Halloween, a monthlong collection of spooky events in and around downtown.
Now that October is over, city officials, business owners and attendees can reflect on the project’s success.
Dustin Sternbeck, the city’s chief spokesperson, said the idea for this project originally came from a conversation at the city level about Christmas decorations.
“While we want to make every holiday seem special in Denton, the one that really stuck out in terms of our conversation was Halloween, so we began planning Denton Halloween 10 months before we actually rolled it out to the community,” he said.
The goal was to turn Denton into the state’s premier Halloween destination by involving as many downtown businesses as possible and to offer a variety of events that cater to different ages and interests.
Sternbeck said that thanks to word of mouth and social media marketing, people from around Texas — and from as far as Canada and various European countries — flocked to Denton to celebrate the spooky season.
“We saw around 145,000 more people that visited our downtown this October compared to last year,” Sternbeck said, adding that 60% of those visitors were not Denton residents.
The Discover Denton Visitor Center saw nearly 40,000 visitors in October. The storefront — which was transformed into the headquarters for the North Texas Ghostbusters — was also the place to buy Denton Halloween merchandise, which grossed more than $43,000.
“It took a lot,” Sternbeck said. “But we had the full support and backing of the entire ecosystem of Denton. And we were able to execute a really special first year of Denton Halloween.”
All of the festivities led to more people visiting the downtown Square and its shops and restaurants.
Axel Severs, who has worked at Recycled Books, Records & CDs for about seven years, said he noticed a significant increase in people visiting the store.
“This month has been one of the busier Octobers I can remember,” he said. “All that stuff going on on the Square certainly drummed up business.”
Downtown bar East Side Denton hosted multiple events last month, including pumpkin carving, weekly movie nights and a Halloween costume contest. Co-manager Aaron Shepherd, who has worked at East Side for eight years, also noticed the influx of new patrons.
“We had a lot of new faces and out-of-towners coming to visit, presumably for the Halloweentown effect,” Shepherd said. “And it was consistent throughout the month.”
Sternbeck said the project also gave opportunities for visitors to learn more about Denton from locals themselves. For example, the Scary Chairy Orchard display paid homage to the Chairy Orchard, a unique outdoor collection of chairs that was once a staple of Denton.
“We’re just so fortunate to have such an artistic and creative community,” Sternbeck said.
He also said the Denton Halloween website will soon be transformed into a place where community members can leave feedback and submit suggestions for future Halloween events.
“I don’t want to tease the ideas yet,” Sternbeck said. “But we’ve already started brainstorming for what 2025 has in store.”