Given that the Alameda Unified School District made Halloween a student holiday this year, we prepared for first blood earlier. Our hypothesis was confirmed by our first spooky family landing at 4:53 p.m. Over 4.5 hours, our team of five data scientists and five candy wranglers distributed 82 pounds of candy and about 120 stickers to 1,164 trick-or-treaters. (Read previous Halloween reports: 2024, 2023, and 2022.)
Our data analysts tracked a number of categories per usual. We did not introduce any new categories this year, and retired the height category due to logistical challenges. While previous years have seen a smooth ramp up and steady decline, this year we saw a flatter, steadier peak period and noticeable dip between 8 and 8:30 p.m.
Inflatable dinosaurs and alien abductions remain common amongst the inflatables. There were a number of new inflatables this year, including Mr. Potato Head and Rex from Toy Story, Hyacinth Hippo and Ben Ali Gator from Fantasia’s “Dance of the Hours,” Squidward, an airplane, and an axolotl one of our researchers initially thought was a Mudkip. That said, inflatable costumes were down by a third from last year, and many of the inflatables we did see were already deflated even early in the evening. These costumes may be on the decline due to their mobility-inhibiting nature, deterioration due to costume age, or the increase of their use by adults.
Baskets have begun to rise in popularity as candy receptacles, and the analyst who has been tracking this for several years has suggested spinning those out from the “Other” category to replace hats, which have been steadily declining in popularity. Trader Joe’s seasonal canvas totes were well-represented among bags, along with the perennial pumpkin containers, Boo Buckets, and plastic shopping bags.
For once, our data scientists were on top of a cultural trend and went into the evening fully expecting to see a massive number of costumes from the Netflix property KPop Demon Hunters. We were not disappointed. From HUNTR/X to Saja Boys, Derpy to Sussie, children and caregivers pushed the prevalence of the nascent intellectual property beyond either Marvel or DC. Likely a direct result of the rise of the Honmoon, Elsa’s stranglehold on Halloween seems to have come to a close. We only saw a handful of Elsas in her Frozen 2 togs. White costumes also increased in popularity due to the rise of KPop Demon Hunter candy seekers in the trio’s “Golden” livery, and the prevalence of black costumes dipped slightly.
Color data otherwise remained stable from years past, with black continuing to shroud the lion’s share of trick-or-treaters, including a particularly delightful bat made from a cardboard box. Once again, virtually all of the yellow costumes we saw this year were Minions, though we did enjoy the presence of several Grus. Modern costumes (post-1900s) are becoming more common, beating out retro ones (pre-1900s) at about a 3 to1 ratio rather than the 2 to 1 ratio seen in previous years.
Last year’s Joker prevalence inspired us to track DC properties this year, but we did not see a single Joker. Supermen dominated the DC landscape (sparse despite the James Gunn 2025 film release), and Spidermen (and the rare Spider-Gwen) continue to comprise most of the Marvel costumes.
Our team now feels confident saying that Chucky and Ghostface have been fully integrated into the classic horror costume oeuvre. Based on the difficulty of classifying these costumes, along with those like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, into the science fiction/fantasy dichotomy, we will be adding a third “horror” category next year at the suggestion of the analyst who has been tracking this category on an ongoing basis. Most of these classic horror costumes, including more generic options like creepy clowns and ghouls, are currently inflating the fantasy category numbers to 85%, and we believe creating more granular data in this domain will more accurately represent our community of candy seekers.
In terms of trends, over the course of the evening, we saw what amounted to a full herd of shot-in-the-head deer costumes. When we mentioned it to one posthumous deer, curious about whether this was a meme or intellectual property we did not know about, they were surprised to learn there were others prancing the streets. Our data scientists keep an eye out for the influence of TikTok on costume theming and point to that influence for the sudden rise of Max Goof costumes this season, a trend our team found, well, goofy.
We also saw an increase in Cheetah Girls, an astoundingly accurate Vyvyan from The Young Ones, and a single Prince from Katamari Damacy, likely following a similar trend wherein we saw Left Shark costumes rise as parents shared their beloved media moments with their offspring. Of special note in this category was a bedraggled Cornelius, ready to give you a hug at the local support group so you could cry it out and get a good night’s sleep. What made this costume particularly horrifying was the wearer referring to 1999’s Fight Club as an “ancient text.” Didn’t that just come out?
MacKenzie Stuart and Jon Spinner are Halloween Scientists based in Alameda. Learn more about their lab’s work at halloweendata.com.
