Spirit Halloween opens Egg Harbor flagship, targeting record 1,575 stores

Lead

Spirit Halloween opened its Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, flagship store on Aug. 1, kicking off a record seasonal footprint of 1,575 pop-up locations across the United States and Canada, USA TODAY reported on Aug. 3.

NorthJersey.com reported the same day that Halloween fans gathered at the Harbor Square location for giveaways and a first look at 2026 costumes and décor, and that about 400 stores were already open with the rest due in the coming weeks.

Search interest for spirit halloween sat at rank 20 on the 4 Aug 2026 Google Trends pull as the retailer’s Egg Harbor Township flagship opening and record 1,575-store rollout moved from June hiring headlines into early-August store openings, with no adjacent Halloween retail queries on the same board.

The rollout

Spirit Halloween director of PR Lori Tesoro told USA TODAY in June that the chain planned 1,575 stores for 2026, up from 1,546 in 2025 and 1,535 in 2024. A June 11 company release distributed via PR Newswire said Spirit was hiring more than 52,000 seasonal associates for more than 1,500 U.S. and Canadian locations, calling it the largest hiring event in company history.

CEO Steven Silverstein said in that release that teams “share a passion for all things Halloween” and transform stores into community destinations for the season. The official store locator at stores.spirithalloween.com describes Spirit as the largest Halloween retailer in North America, with over 1,500 stores in the United States and Canada.

Haunted Attraction Network reported the flagship at 6725 Black Horse Pike returned its public grand-opening celebration on Aug. 1 after a one-year hiatus, with remaining pop-ups opening on a staggered schedule through August into early September rather than all at once.

Retail context

Specialty Halloween and costume stores remain a major shopping channel, though not the only one. USA TODAY cited National Retail Federation survey findings that nearly one-third of consumers planned to spend at specialty Halloween and costume stores in the prior year’s Halloween outlook, while overall U.S. Halloween spending had been projected above $13 billion for 2025. NorthJersey.com noted Michaels and Costco had already put Halloween merchandise on shelves earlier in the summer, a wider retail calendar that Spirit’s early-August openings still tend to mark for many shoppers.