Halloween Has Grown From A Holiday Into A Season, And Domainers Should Take Notice
Horror is in. I mean, it’s never really been out. But it’s definitely in, now. And when I say horror, I mean generally dark themes; not just movies. This includes goth, video games and biggest of them all: Halloween.
Every kid loves Halloween. But historically once they reach the age where they no longer go out, people come to realize it’s a rather insignificant holiday. Sure, there are always adults who go to costume parties and whatnot, but in the past Halloween was always “behind” other holidays like Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
I say that’s no longer the case. And I say that Halloween is easily now the second most popular holiday in America after Christmas.
There are several reasons for this:
- It’s not really tied to a religion. Sure, the name comes from “All Hallows Evening” referring to the fact that it immediately precedes All Saints Day. But the actual act of starting a bonfire to end the harvest and to placate the dead was more of a superstition of the Celts. The point is that it’s not religious, making it more welcoming for people of all religions. People have also begun to move on from the thought that it’s directly tied to Hell or evil. Well, most have.
- The loss of popularity of other holidays. It has been heavily taught in American schools that our Thanksgiving stems from the interaction between the pilgrims and Native Americans. And since it’s now common knowledge what was REALLY done to the Native Americans, this holiday has lost great popularity and respect. Easter is nothing more than a footnote now-a-days. I recall Independence Day being big when I was growing up. Not anymore; all people care about is getting the day off of work. Same goes for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. I’m not saying that to be rude, I just think the growing cynicism towards America among its citizens is hurting these holidays. No one ever really cared about Columbus Day, but they care even less now that it’s common knowledge that he wasn’t the first and he certainly wasn’t friendly to Native Americans. Check out this Google Trends report that compares Halloween to four other holidays.
- The success of horror video games. The Silent Hill and Resident Evil series have been quite successful; even moving on to the silver screen. In the past few years, some hugely popular horror games came out to critical praise and mainstream success, such as Bioshock, Dead Space, Condemned, Manhunt, Doom 3, The Suffering, the Fatal Frame games and FEAR.
- The success of horror movies. Cheap horror movies have been around forever, but you must admit that you’ve noticed more and more of them in the past decade or so. They are inexpensive and easy to make. They can post decent returns while always having that slight chance of a super hit, like The Blair Witch Project or Saw. Blair Witch costed $35k to make and grossed over $240m worldwide. It is the most successful independent film of all time (if you exclude Star Wars, which some consider independent) and has the highest ratio of box office sales to production cost in American film history. Saw was made for $1.2m and grossed $102m worldwide, while spawning successful sequels every year for four years and counting. This genre is in.
- Generation X and Y grew up loving Halloween. Now they are the primary consumers. And for almost the same reason why the 80’s are big again, Halloween is following these people into their adulthood. For a brief time you can be Boba Fett, Indiana Jones, Batman or Mario and almost nobody will laugh at you. Almost.
- Halloween is practically synonymous with autumn/fall now. People have always put up decorations, but it seems year after year they go up earlier, much like how people do for Christmas. It’s as if Halloween has become it’s own season. I’m sure this is in part due to haunted attractions opening up earlier and earlier in order to milk the trend.
- It’s gone heavily commercial. Consumers love their decorations, and only Christmas can trump Halloween in that department. When you go into big box stores, their Halloween sections are almost as big as their Christmas sections. Hell, Halloween stores even pop up just for the season. Do you see Easter stores open in May? How about 4th of July stores in June? Ok, well, other than fireworks. Surely, there are Thanksgiving stores in early November! No!
So, hopefully I made my point that Halloween is big. Now let’s move onto why you, as a domainer, should care.
I may be wrong, but I think many domainers shy away from seasonal domains and sites due to their very nature: they’re seasonal. In general, just about everything has popularity spikes at certain times each year. But not many things moreso than a holiday. I think the general thought is why build a site if people will only view it one or two months out of the year?
I think, for Halloween at least, there are so many different ways monetize that it makes it worth your while, such as:
- Costume catalog. You can list affiliate links to places where people can purchase costumes, or you can offer up ideas on how people can make their own. This would make a wonderful forum where people can swap ideas and help each other.
- Haunted Attractions. Haunted houses and the like are still popular to this day. Back in my day, we relied on the radio to report locations or the major newspaper would insert a flyer with a listing. These days, it’s much easier to go online and search for what’s going on near you. That’s where you can come in and offer a directory.
- Decorations. Like the costume catalog, you can post affiliate links where people can buy, and then offer how-to’s so people can create their own. Halloween is a very creative holiday and people love to get into it.
- Advertising. Haunted attractions and Halloween stores advertise like mad. They advertise everywhere: TV, radio, billboards, newspapers, the internet. They only have a month of business and need to make sure they stand out in a crowded field. And if you have a popular local website, they will absolutely advertise with you.
A Halloween site can be successful whether it’s national or local, so it can cater to what you prefer. But I personally believe you will have a better chance at success with a local site in a large metro area. If you went local, you should be able to find a great domain name fairly easily, and you will have a much better chance at selling local advertising on a local site.
I think Halloween will get more and more popular every year. Now is the time to build a site. The sooner the better. Build a community and gain trust as quickly as possible so that advertisers will come.
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2 Responses to “Halloween Has Grown From A Holiday Into A Season, And Domainers Should Take Notice”
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I bought Halloweened.Com about a year ago.Anyone interested.
Only need a 5 year old to tell you Halloween runs a very close second to Christmas.
***EDIT***
Hello Dave,
Quite true. Kids have always loved Halloween. But the point I was wanting to make is that adults are increasingly getting into it now. And, well, they’re the ones with the bank accounts.
Thanks!
-Scott