We haven’t even started school yet, and here we are discussing Halloween! If you want to do it big, you have to start early. What kind of promotions do you have in mind? We have a few you can borrow.
Obviously, the Big Bash is the event everyone has the most fun creating! Starting now will make it way easier to secure spots and prizes. This one is pretty self explanatory: Party with a band and a costume contest. Depending on budget, you can get as crazy with this as you want. One thing that would make this party more popular than any other is picking a movie and basing the them off that movie. It could be a classic like Nightmare on Elm Street, or something that may have come out over the summer. Partner with a liquor distributor to have a shot station and a main sponsor. The costume contest is, of course, the main event of the evening. Have a catwalk on stage and let anyone who registered model their wears. You can have a panel of local celebrity judges as well. The band should be well known in the area. If you really want to get the hearts of the listeners, have the entry cost go towards a local charity.
Have your own station haunted house! Hell, get all the stations within the company create their own haunted house! Listeners can come out and judge whose is the best! Have the on air staff and promotions teams be characters in the houses. This can be the final weekend before Halloween. Again, there would be a fee to go through the haunted house but it could go towards a charity of that station’s choosing, so each station has their own charity they are benefiting. Each house can have a sponsor to help with the cost of materials.
When I worked in Fort Myers, Florida, we had Gravy Wrestling around Thanksgiving. It was DISGUSTING, but people loved it!! It was wild to see and brought a huge crowd! You can switch out the gravy for pumpkin guts! I’m sure it would at least smell better. We put the gravy in a baby pool. Have a cash prize for the winner. Don’t sit too close to the pool…I learned my lesson the hard way.
Finally, if your budget is low, do fun little things like:
- Trunk or Treat at your station.
- Guess how many candy corn are in the jar and people can call in every Friday after they’ve seen the pic of said jar on social media.
- Every Friday play a line from a scary movie and have people call in the guess the movie
- Do a virtual costume contest: submit pics on the website and announce the winner before Halloween. Costume contests for pets are also a bit hit
- On Halloween, have the station vehicle drive out to popular neighborhoods and throw out candy
- Team up with Spirit Halloween Stores and give away gift cards for costumes
Halloween is a phenomenal opportunity to interact with your listeners. The earlier you start, the easier it will be to not only put on, but also have fun with it!
Photo courtesy of FreePik