Speaker 1: It's Friday, August seven. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: As a result of the pandemic, Halloween could be canceled
Speaker 1: or at least look very different than in the past.
Speaker 1: Many major theme parks have already canceled their Halloween events
Speaker 1: and now big questions remain about trick or treating and
Speaker 1: also how it could impact the costume and candy industries.
Speaker 1: Hugo Martin, business writer at The l A Times, joins
Speaker 1: us for how Halloween could be very different this year.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Hugo, Yeah, thanks for every Halloween
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite holidays. I get together with
Speaker 1: my wife, we get together with friends. We love to
Speaker 1: go to all these theme parks that have their events,
Speaker 1: you know, in California. Here in Los Angeles area, we
Speaker 1: obviously have the Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, Not
Speaker 1: Scary Farm at Nots, and the Queen Mary has their
Speaker 1: Dark Harbor event. You know. I love those that kind
Speaker 1: of kicks off the Halloween season and then throughout I
Speaker 1: love it costumes, trick or tree in the whole nine.
Speaker 1: But with the pandemic, the way it is. Everything has
Speaker 1: been kind of thrown for a loop. A lot of
Speaker 1: these theme parks have already canceled their Halloween events, and
Speaker 1: there's just more questions after that. What's going to happen
Speaker 1: to the retailers like Spirit, the costume shops that really
Speaker 1: rely on this season to keep them afloat. Everything's been
Speaker 1: thrown into question now, so he go. You wrote a
Speaker 1: little bit about how this could impact the holiday there.
Speaker 1: Tell us about it. You were mentioning all these Halloween
Speaker 1: festivities that theme parks have, and in the past they've
Speaker 1: been just going bigger and bigger every year. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were breaking records. You would be waiting in line
Speaker 1: for hours in some cases to get in these mazes
Speaker 1: and to get in the rides, and the stores that
Speaker 1: sell the costumes. Spirit and Party City used to go
Speaker 1: back there to get costumes around the Halloween time and
Speaker 1: it just be while the wall with people and costumes
Speaker 1: all over the floor. So it's been a huge boost
Speaker 1: to the economy every year. And this year, all the
Speaker 1: major theme parks here in southern California have canceled their
Speaker 1: Halloween festivities, and some of the stores and the candy
Speaker 1: makers are saying you know, we just don't know what
Speaker 1: it's going to look like this year because of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's unclear if people are going to be
Speaker 1: even trick or treating this year. I mean, it's definitely sad,
Speaker 1: but it's understandable at least with these theme park festivities.
Speaker 1: You know, in these dark, cramped mazes. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are outdoors, but sometimes they're indoors. Their smoke machines,
Speaker 1: people breathing on you, screaming. These are all the things
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be doing in close quarters with each other,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense. You did have a section in
Speaker 1: your article where you talked about Halloween spending. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of money attached to this. Run through some of
Speaker 1: those numbers. Last year, based on a survey by the
Speaker 1: National Retail Federation, they estimated that Americans would spend eight
Speaker 1: point eight billion dollars just on Halloween, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the third I think it was the third
Speaker 1: highest in the fifteen years that they've been doing the survey.
Speaker 1: Most of that money spent on costumes and then a
Speaker 1: big chunk also on candy and decorations. So it's a
Speaker 1: huge holiday. It's second only do Christmas when it comes
Speaker 1: to spending in the US. So it's big, and it's
Speaker 1: been getting bigger and bigger every year. You say it's
Speaker 1: second only to Christmas. There was also a note in
Speaker 1: the article some people might not have a problem with that.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people do. Though, is that
Speaker 1: kind of slow creep of Christmas into Thanksgiving and beyond
Speaker 1: and before that. They're saying that if Halloween is a bust,
Speaker 1: a lot of retailers might launch Christmas promotions early to
Speaker 1: try to offset that, to try to compensate. You know,
Speaker 1: we're just kind of laughing about these things. But that's
Speaker 1: another thing that Christmas might come even earlier because Halloween
Speaker 1: could be a bust. Yeah, I mean we all go
Speaker 1: to the stores and we see the like Halloween stuff
Speaker 1: where the Thanksgiving stuff. We go, wait a minute, that's
Speaker 1: still like a month away or two months away. And now,
Speaker 1: as you say, if Halloween is a bust, we're gonna
Speaker 1: see Christmas decorations and Christmas wrapping and all that stuff
Speaker 1: even earlier because the stores are going to try to
Speaker 1: make up for that loss. Back to candy for a moment,
Speaker 1: you know, Candy sales obviously going on throughout the year,
Speaker 1: and they have other holidays associated with candy, but this
Speaker 1: is a big one for them. You spoke to someone
Speaker 1: at Hershey Company, what is their sense of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: They're still hoping that it will be a pretty good year.
Speaker 1: They're hoping that people will buy candy just for themselves,
Speaker 1: even if there's no trick or treating. It's unclear what's
Speaker 1: can happen with trick or treating. I did call the
Speaker 1: l A County Public Health Department and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you think. Are you guys gonna have any
Speaker 1: suggestions on whether people should trick or treat? And they said,
Speaker 1: for now, they're waiting to do that, but they said
Speaker 1: be prepared to offer alternative ways to celebrate that minimize
Speaker 1: contact with non household members, which you know, my reading
Speaker 1: is they may not be too cool on walking door
Speaker 1: to door and knocking on people's doors around the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's gonna be interesting if public health officials
Speaker 1: say trick or treating is not a safe thing to do.
Speaker 1: And that's another interesting one. You'll probably see a lot
Speaker 1: of candy bowls just there, you know, kind of help
Speaker 1: yourself canny balls. But even in that sense. You know,
Speaker 1: the studies that they've done, the virus can live on
Speaker 1: surfaces and things for some time. It's not as much
Speaker 1: of a worry as being in a room with people
Speaker 1: breathing on you. But even still there's going to be
Speaker 1: a concern there. So it's just gonna be a tough situation.
Speaker 1: And you know, we'll wait for that guidance, but already
Speaker 1: it seems like it might not be so well. The
Speaker 1: last question I had for you, Hugo, you spoke to
Speaker 1: a few people that love Hall the Ween obviously, and
Speaker 1: they're kind of just saying, it's not gonna be the same.
Speaker 1: I'm probably just gonna stay home this year. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you'd like to go to the Universal Studios and not
Speaker 1: very farm and I do too, And so I talked
Speaker 1: to some folks who do that on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: and they said they're just gonna maybe stay home and
Speaker 1: watch scary movies all day. They're not gonna, basically, in
Speaker 1: their mind, cancel Halloween. They'll try to do it in
Speaker 1: some way that's safe and without going out. Probably no
Speaker 1: costume parties this year, but you can always stay at
Speaker 1: home and watch horror movies and uh, celebrate that way.
Speaker 1: Hugo Martin, business writer at the l A Times, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us. I appreciate thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America.
Speaker 1: Don't forget the effort today's big news stories. You can
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