Amelia Groothuis
SALEM, MA- When Halloween approaches, so do the crowds and excitement all around the city of Salem, Massachusetts. This year’s Halloween was no different.
According to Salem.org, 1.8 million people return to Salem each year to get the full Halloween experience. The city generates around 140 million annually from these haunted happenings. This popular city is quite the attraction all year, but especially once October hits. This is because of all kinds of tours, haunted houses, shops and themed restaurants. Salem first started doing their haunted happenings for Halloween weekend in 1982 and has carried the tradition ever since.
The tradition started as a way for families to visit the “which city” and enjoy a weekend filled with festivities. It has since then become a month-long celebration as we now see today as the streets of Salem are always filled with crowds of people for the month of October.
Salem during October this year has been especially busy as everyone is winding down from COVID. There are vast amounts of crowds making for horrible parking, lots of different tours going on, lively bars and restaurants, and of course the intense amount of costumes and characters.
“People who travel to Salem for Halloween don’t realize how small Salem is and how many people actually come,” said Anja Johnson an employee of the Ledger in Salem, “Halloween is the busiest time rather than thanksgiving and Christmas. Servers in the front house flip tables much faster and take care of higher quantities, due to the volume of people traveling, and this increases the profit made”.
Due to this higher volume of people, businesses in Salem need to adapt to this kind of environment as they’ll be dealing with all kinds of customers, as they need to keep them happy.
Senior, Maggie Silvestri, had the pleasure of visiting Salem with her friends and got the whole Salem experience by going to The Derby, Bit Bar and even did a haunted house.
Maggie says “Salem was crazy, but really fun because of how lively it was” and “Restaurants are super packed but had a good atmosphere, good vibes from the crowd, and I feel if someone isn’t from the area the history is really cool to hear about and the food is awesome. Go with your friends!”
Now that Halloween season is done, Salem will prepare for another year of haunted happenings to come while still keeping some crowds around.
