Oregon’s Spirit of Halloweentown capitalizes on the iconic 1998 movie
Most of us celebrate Halloween on a single night. But in the small waterfront town of St. Helens, Ore.—27 miles north of Portland—strange and spooky festivities over six autumn weekends attract thousands of visitors. Witches perform spirited broom dances in gorgeous silk and velvet costumes. Shop windows display skeletons and ghouls, cemetery scenes, and creeping tentacles. A haunted house elicits shrieks of delight from children and adults alike. Booths offer trinkets, souvenirs, gyros, burgers, and homemade clam chowder in bread bowls. And a beer garden features local microbrews and live music.
In 1998, The Disney Channel released Halloweentown, the now-beloved story of a 13-year-old witch who must help her witch grandmother fight a dangerous force threatening to destroy her charming, little town. Much of the movie was filmed in St. Helens; in October 1998, community groups gathered to hold a festival in celebration of their contribution to the film.
Twenty-six years later, Spirit of Halloweentown has grown into an annual event, taking place from mid-September to the end of October. Crystal King, Communications Officer of the City of St. Helens, explains that the first two weekends are more of a soft opening with 1,000 to 2,000 visitors daily. “On our bigger weekends in October, when we have our parades and the pumpkin lighting ceremony and our celebrities, we can see 10,000 people in a single day,” she says. “Our restaurants and retail businesses see a big boost.”
Each weekend has a different theme. “We have a Halloweentown weekend, of course,” she says. “We might also have a witch's weekend and a brew fest weekend. Last year, we had a Twilight weekend because St. Helens was the location of several of the scenes in the original Twilight movie. We do something unique every weekend on top of the regular events that we offer throughout the entire season.”
King particularly loves the event’s daytime and evening parades with spookily costumed participants tossing candy from floats and other vehicles. “I think having a Halloween parade is pretty unique,” she says. “And I don’t know of anywhere else that does a pumpkin lighting ceremony to kick off Halloween.”
She’s referring to the lighting of Jack the Pumpkin—a giant orange pumpkin with more than 8,000 followers on its dedicated Facebook page—in St. Helens’ Plaza Square. A Master or Mistress of Ceremonies (in 2019, the MC was actor Peter Facinelli from the Twilight movies) leads the countdown for visitors, who crowd the square after the evening parade and flock to restaurants and pubs afterward for dining and dancing to music from regional bands.
Tapping Into The Power Of Nostalgia
People come to experience the Spirit of Halloweentown from Europe, South America, Asia, and Canada. Annual visitors arrive from Arizona and Texas and all over the East Coast. “One couple came from England last year for an entire month,” King says. “People who grew up watching The Disney Channel and seeing Halloweentown on TV come to our festival to relive the magic of their youth. They bring their families as well to experience something that was formative and important to them. They love the nostalgia.”
Visitors can participate in pumpkin carving and costume contests. They can dance with a local group of witches called “The Cauldron Sisters and Roy,” who practice together as a group all year and dance twice a day every weekend of Spirit of Halloweentown in the middle of Plaza Square. “They have the most gorgeous costumes, and they do some participatory dances at the end to get the crowd involved. It's a real crowd-pleaser,” King says.
A pirate reenactment and encampment group hosts children’s story times and free cannon shows over the water. Visitors might also spot zombie dancers, jugglers, fire dancers, Star Wars characters, and The Unipiper. “He’s an iconic Portland performer who rides a unicycle wearing a kilt and a Darth Vader helmet,” she explains. “He plays bagpipes that shoot flames.”
Celebrating A City’s Unique Attributes
King encourages city officials interested in launching an annual event to assess what's unique to their area and think about how to capitalize on it. She loves attending the annual North Plains Garlic Festival in the Portland-metro area. “They have tons of vendors and bands and garlic lemonade and garlic ice cream,” she explains. North Plains is rural, and visitors can purchase different types of garlic from different farmers. “They’ve capitalized on something that’s unique to their area. I love going to it—it’s really fun!”
She urges city officials to be unafraid of taking risks. One of the reasons Spirit of Halloweentown is such a success is that the city has always reached out to—and incorporated—the celebrities from the original film. In 2015, Kimberly J. Brown, the original lead actress from Halloweentown, appeared at the pumpkin lighting. “That ended up going viral on Facebook, which spread the event to a much broader audience,” King says. “Suddenly, we were getting featured in MSN and in Teen Vogue.”
Brown attended the event again in 2023, with Halloweentown costars J. Paul Zimmerman, Emily Roeske, and Phil Van Dyke. All posed for photos, signed autographs for visitors, and promoted the event on social media. “It really does pay to take a risk and invite celebrities to your event,” King says.
It also pays to be close to a large city. Visitors can get to Portland in less than an hour. “The city has a ton of Halloween-related events,” she says. “It’s easy for people to make it a long weekend and experience both Portland and Spirit of Halloweentown.” Nearby Sauvie Island appeals to visitors as well. “They have haunted corn mazes, tractor rides, pumpkin-picking; it’s a good spot for people who want that traditional pumpkin patch/harvest experience.”
Community Partnerships Are Key
King admits that keeping up with the rapid growth of Spirit of Halloweentown has been difficult. “We aren't a large city, and we have limited staff,” she explains. “We handle our tourism events at the City of St. Helens through a contract with an independent contractor.”
Still, city employees are involved in the event. “Our public works department helps to decorate the plaza so that it's ready for the event each September. I am obviously involved on the communication side of things. We all have our regular day jobs. It’s a balancing act of keeping the day-to-day city services going while also being a part of managing a large-scale event with a very limited number of staff.”
One way to create a successful event with few paid city employees, King says, is to partner with nonprofits and community organizations. In the past, Spirit of Halloweentown has teamed up with St. Helens’ Community Emergency Response Team, a federal program formed after 9/11 to train citizens in emergency response. Event staff also worked with the St. Helens Boy Scout troop and with a nonprofit that donates books to kindergartners.
“Our event contractor in the past has given volunteer organizations a portion of proceeds if they help with event parking or with other types of event management,” she explains. “A lot of the groups volunteering at this event put the money back in the community with youth or seniors or others who need assistance. Creating these partnerships is a great way to reinvest in the community.”
To learn more about Spirit of Halloweentown, visit SpiritofHalloweentown.com.
Melissa Hart's travel articles have appeared in Smithsonian, The Boston Globe, Hemispheres, High Country News, Hidden Compass, and numerous other publications. Find her at www.melissahart.com and on social media @WildMelissaHart.
