Hallowe’en: transatlanic differences

Hallowe’en, or All Hallows’ Eve, falls on the 31st October every year and is a festival traditionally marking the beginning of Allhallowtide, a three-day period dedicated to the remembrance of the dead. It is believed to have originated as a Celtic festival, and over time has changed and mutated into the night of ghouls and ghosts that it currently is.

In Britain, Hallowe’en has never really been considered a worthy festival: often it is thought of as being immature, only for the children who go out trick-or-treating. Unlike in other countries, though, the threatened “trick” is far less likely to be an actual threat – more standing on ceremony than anything else.

In America, however, Hallowe’en is perceived in an entirely different way. In America, Hallowe’en is business – a business worth $6.9 billion (£4.5bn) a year. Hundreds of companies derive vast revenue from a variety of different services connected with the festival: costumes for both adults and children are more often purchased as one whole outfit rather than pieced together, as is often the practice in the UK. Houses are decorated all over, and plenty of companies run that almost exclusively American phenomenon: the scare experience. These interactive areas are operated by a variety of companies including Disneyworld and Busch Gardens, and are cited as the main reason for Florida’s increased number of tourists: 23.7 million people visited during the Hallowe’en period last year, and 2015’s statistics are expected to be equal, if not larger. The largest of these events, however, is Universal Studios’ ‘Halloween Horror Nights Orlando’, which has run every year for the past 25 years for a six-week run and, with one night’s entry at around $100 (£60) they are wildly profitable for the company. The fully immersive experiences can be extremely harrowing, and Mike Aiello, the head of Universal’s entertainment development creative team, says that he has seen people “soil themselves” in the events of previous years.

But Hallowe’en also seems to have its downsides: incidents involving heavy drinking often spike on that night, and this year police clashed with the crowd at an illegal rave in Lambeth when they arrived to close it down. Several arrests were made and four officers were treated on the scene for injuries. In any event, Hallowe’en appears to be here to stay on either side of the pond.