Naysayers may note that the ranks of the Halloween early birds are growing. The first five August evenings of Not-So-Scary sold out.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not alone in their enthusiasm. Last year, consumers spent $13 billion on Halloween activities, according to the National Retail Federation<\/a>. It\u2019s evident on the seasonal-merchandise shelves in stores and with the surge of pumpkin-spice latte mania.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have really attached themselves to the season of Halloween, not the holiday of Halloween,\u201d said Melissa Ruminot, chief executive officer of the Themed Entertainment Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an occasion that attractions can mark in simple moves or grand ways, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are entertainment aspects of Halloween that are scalable to your different levels, and so I think that\u2019s one of the reasons you\u2019re seeing it start earlier and earlier,\u201d Ruminot said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s cute pumpkins and trick-or-treating and the ability to dress up or to the extreme, which is horror. \u2026 There\u2019s something for everybody, and, ultimately, it\u2019s a community-driven experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n At Universal Studios Florida<\/a>, there has been visual evidence of its impending Halloween Horror Nights<\/a> for weeks as props for the event\u2019s outdoor scare zones have been moved into place for broad-daylight observation. That includes a statue of Jack the Clown, a recurring HHN icon, looming in the New York area of the park. Horror Nights begins Aug. 28, its earliest debut, too. The park also doubled up on its exclusive Premium Scream Night event, which will held twice this year.<\/p>\n SeaWorld Orlando<\/a> covers its mild and wild bases with daytime Halloween Spooktacular<\/a> activities geared toward kids starting Aug. 29 then the darker, nighttime Howl-O-Scream<\/a> beginning Sept. 11.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can do Halloween with your young toddler, and then go out on a date and do horror Halloween and still be in the season of it,\u201d Ruminot said.<\/p>\n Merchandise is in play, too. Universal Orlando released multiple lines of products in coordination with several haunted-house announcements, particularly those tied to intellectual properties such as \u201cKillers\u201d and \u201cStranger Things.\u201d\u00a0 Disney World sells event-specific goods plus more generic pieces such as T-shirts with spookily attired characters or Jack-o\u2019-lantern-shaped Stormtrooper helmets as well as mouse-ear headbands featuring black cats and ghosts wearing mouse ears.<\/p>\n Disney\u2019s early start for Not-So-Scary mixes convenience and commerce, said AJ Wolfe, owner of Cambrick Yard Media<\/a>, operator of fan sites including Disney Food Blog<\/a> and AllEars<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, August and September are the lowest traffic times for Disney World. and they desperately want to get bodies in the parks,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n Starting the Halloween party and the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, which once had late September launches, earlier \u201calso gives them the opportunity to incentivize bodies in the parks when people maybe wouldn\u2019t go otherwise,\u201d she said. \u201cNow, starting it in August, you have the opportunity to bring in families who still have their kids out of school.\u201d<\/p>\n Magic Kingdom\u2019s Halloween event features activities not seen at other times, including stage shows, fireworks displays and the popular \u201cMickey\u2019s Boo to You Halloween Parade.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople like to brag about their trips, and if they got to see Mickey\u2019s Not-So-Scary Halloween party and they got to see Mickey in his costume and they got to trick or treat on Main Street \u2026 The other ladies in the PTA? Their family didn\u2019t because they went in June,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n Other draws are photo opportunities with Disney characters in Halloween costumes. The Not-So-Scary parties start at 7 p.m., but ticketholders are allowed in at 4 p.m., and many of them dart to where Jack and Sally from \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas\u201d<\/a> are stationed. By 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, the second event night of the year, the park\u2019s estimated wait time for that duo was 160 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got exclusive merchandise, exclusive snacks and exclusive events that you can\u2019t get any other time,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cSo that\u2019s another huge draw from a flex perspective of you being able to put that up on your Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s D23 attractions update will be shown on Disney+<\/a><\/p>\n The event is looser on costume restrictions than during a normal day in the park, resulting in adults geared up in creative homages to characters and attractions.<\/p>\n \u201cI do things I normally can\u2019t, even the dress-up side of things,\u201d Ruminot said. \u201cThat\u2019s breaking the rules at Disney, too, but now you can because you\u2019re in the story of this. It\u2019s perfectly crafted.\u201d<\/p>\n Legoland Florida<\/a> increased the number of days and nights for its Brick or Treat<\/a> event by 50% this year. The Winter Haven theme park also developed new elements for its 2026 run, which starts Sept. 5.<\/p>\n \u201cBrick or Treat Street is six life-size homes that are inspired by fan-favorite Lego monster minifigures,\u201d said Brittany Williams, head of public relations for Merlin Entertainments<\/a>, which operates Legoland parks.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just another layer. It\u2019s like a twist on trick-or-treating because you\u2019re not there for the candy. You\u2019re there for the interactives and just the playfulness of it,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n The houses are available in the park\u2019s Imagination Zone, an indoor attraction.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we know, Florida in September? It\u2019s still quite hot, so this allows me to have some fun and in a climate-controlled environment,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Legoland also added an overlay of its driving-school attraction, creating the Department of Monster Vehicles, where kids maneuver around candy cones and avoid slime spills, plus a light trail with special effects. It again is featuring a drone show, which was added to the lineup last year.<\/p>\n Brick or Treat is included with regular park admission, a plus for locals and annual passholders, Williams said.<\/p>\n \u201cBy expanding it out even more, it allows them to have more dates to choose from, and it allows them to be more flexible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But will Legoland join the Halloween very early birds?<\/p>\n \u201cAs a start date, I wouldn\u2019t rule it out for future years,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Legoland Florida preps Coastersaurus to roar again<\/a><\/p>\n Brick or Treat comes on the heels of the park\u2019s Lego Festival and events related to this summer\u2019s FIFA World Cup. And all Orlando-area theme parks start moving into end-of-year holidays mode in November, creating an extended string of festivities.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the calendar cramping is a problem as long as you continue to have a fresh offering for repeatability,\u201d Ruminot said.<\/p>\n Email me at dbevil@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. BlueSky: @themeparksdb. Threads account: @dbevil. X account: @themeparks. Subscribe to the Theme Park Rangers newsletter at orlandosentinel.com\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halloween isn\u2019t just around the corner. It\u2019s here, and it\u2019s picking up momentum at Orlando\u2019s theme parks and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,2659,104,28,29,2889,9571,114,19041,266,115,1335,139,141,140,14291,2043,109,76687,76688,76689,2411,106,1316,107,3434],"class_list":["post-371337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-disney-world","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-holiday","tag-lake-buena-vista","tag-latest-headlines","tag-legoland","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-parenting-and-family","tag-seaworld","tag-social","tag-social-entertainment","tag-social-theme-parks","tag-social-travel","tag-theme-parks","tag-things-to-do","tag-tourism","tag-travel","tag-universal-orlando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Walt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-notsoscary-02.jpeg\")
Walt Disney World visitors, some in holiday costumes, work their way into Magic Kingdom theme park for early admittance to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, an after-hours event with exclusive offerings and shows. (Dewayne Bevil\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n![\"Universal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-universal-halloween-jack1.jpeg\")
os visitors check out a statue of Jack the Clown, frequently the face of the theme park’s Halloween Horror Nights events. The figure is part of the preparation of a scare zone for the after-hours fright fest, which begins Aug. 28. (Dewayne Bevil\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n![\"Universal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-usfla-01.jpeg\")
Universal Orlando visitors walk through preparations for Halloween Horror Nights, which launches at Universal Studios Florida theme park on Aug. 28. (Dewayne Bevil\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n![\"Halloween](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-halloween-01.jpeg\")
Halloween decor and merchandise is on sale at World of Disney store at Disney Springs. (Dewayne Bevil\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n![\"Brick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-brickortreat-01.jpg\")
Brick or Treat Street will be a new interactive element of Legoland Florida’s Halloween festivities this year. Participants will explore the homes of Lego Monsters. (Legoland Florida)<\/p>\n