On the Friday before Halloween, Party Time’s parking lot is packed. Inside, parents, children and other shoppers scurry through aisles and fill their arms with costume pieces and deathly decor.
Third-generation owner Monty Travis says the locally owned party store will continue to see big crowds of customers up until Oct. 31. Even though these shoppers may be a little last minute, Travis says Party Time still has plenty of finds stocked on multiple aisles to ensure customers look their best for costume parties and trick-or-treating.
Just in time for Halloween, we caught up with Travis, who we found working as a cashier to help with the shop’s long checkout lines, to talk about the haunting holiday and how business is for Party Time during spooky season. Quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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As the 2023 Halloween season comes to a close, tell us about how business has been for Party Time.
Generally, every year there are a couple of hot costumes. The superheroes or any kind of action hero are always hot. And then of course, this year with the Barbie movie, that has helped boost our sales and has been real popular. In general, the decor has done well this year and costumes always do well. We’re also seeing a lot of people doing DIY costumes, and we have several different items. You don’t have to just buy a full costume because we have a lot of DIY options, as well.
About how many costumes does Party Time stock for the Halloween season?
We will have about a little over 10,000 costumes.
Are there any items that sold particularly well this year that surprised you? If so, what are they?
Barbie has done better than we thought. The movie had a big hit about a month and a half ago, and it’s really held on strong. People are looking for anything Barbie. We also do well with the spider webbing and medium-sized props like spiders you put in the yard and the rope spider webbing. We have decorations from scary to not-so-scary, and those have always done well, but it’s kind of been a surprise how well they’ve done this year.
What are some decor trends that you’ve seen become especially popular this Halloween?
Christmas is the big holiday for outdoor decorations. But, in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a huge trend toward outdoor decorations for Halloween. You can ride around Baton Rouge and see that people are just going all out. It’s anywhere from the large skeletons that we sell here all the way to the spider webbing, which is a great option, to anything you think about putting in your yard. We have signs and some big eyeballs. That’s kind of the trend toward outdoor decorations—people going all out.
Is Halloween the busiest time for the store? If so, why do you think so?
Yes. We do sell a lot of the decor, and that helps out. Costumes are a big item for our store. Somebody can come in here as a one-stop shop and get whatever. Whether it’s getting costumes, any kind of face paint, accessories or decor for a party, we have it all.
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With national pop-up chains and other nationwide stores selling Halloween decor and costumes, what sets apart Party Time, especially at this time of year?
Keeping the store full and having good customer service have been our driving points, and I think that has helped us compete with the big national stores.
How does it feel to know that with all of these options, there are still plenty of people and families in the community who chose to support Party Time as a local, independently owned business?
It’s good to shop local. I know personally, I always try to shop local, and this is the day and age where sometimes it’s hard to shop local. Having a good store environment, customer service and what customers need, that’s what we really strive to do.
Where do all the leftover costumes, accessories and decorations go after Halloween?
Costumes stay out year-round, as well as certain things like makeup, wigs and accessories. All the decor that’s Halloween-related is packed up, and we put it in our warehouse. Then, we put Christmas out. Halloween poses a lot of challenges because we’re so busy. But, after that, we have to stay busy in the store turning Halloween over. Until the first week in November, it’s a pretty good push to try to get everything out. We try to take one week to have the whole store turned over for Christmas.