Halloween has become one of the biggest single-day holidays of the year. Amid other festive fall celebrations, Halloween is a chance to get spooky, scary, and maybe a little weird. Just as kids enjoy dressing up in costumes and going trick-or-treating, adults get into the spirit of Halloween too, trying to outdo their neighbors with over the top decorations and heading to haunted houses and other spooky attractions.
And buying candy, lots and lots of candy. Overall, Americans are on track to spend more than ever on Halloween this year: $12.2 billion according to the National Retail Federation.On this episode of Florida Matters, we talk about the business of Halloween and how it got so big, with Carol Osborne, director of the Zimmerman Advertising Program at the University of South Florida, and journalist and author of '100 things to do in Tampa Bay before you die', Kristen Hare. And- WUSF's Steve Newborn takes a ghost tour of the Tampa Theatre