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Business · Halloween

Who Owns Spirit Halloween? The Pop-Up Chain That Moves Into Dayton’s Empty Stores Every Fall

It began as one dress shop in 1983. Today its private owner runs more than 3,000 stores, buys most of its goods in Asia and has spent two seasons pricing costumes under shifting tariffs.

By Richthrax · Oct. 27, 2026

Every August, empty storefronts across the Miami Valley light up with animatronic ghouls. By the first week of November they go dark again. The company behind that ritual started as a single dress shop in California and now belongs to a privately held retailer that runs more than 3,000 stores.

A dress shop that switched to costumes

Joe Marver founded Spirit Halloween in 1983 in the Castro Valley Village Shopping Center, in California's East Bay, according to Wikipedia's account of the company. He had run a women's discount clothing store called Spirit Women's Discount Apparel; when a neighboring costume store closed, he filled his space with Halloween goods and kept the name, The Hustle reported. The first season brought in about $100,000 in 30 days, according to The Hustle.

By 1999 Marver had about 60 seasonal stores. That year Spencer Gifts, the mall novelty chain, bought Spirit. No price was disclosed.

Under Spencer, the chain grew fast: 434 temporary stores in 46 states by 2006, more than 1,000 by 2013 and about 1,400 in 2020, according to Wikipedia. Today Spirit runs roughly 1,500 to 1,600 seasonal stores a year in North America, Fortune reported on Oct. 24. The company has also tested Spirit Christmas stores, expanding a 2024 pilot to 30 locations in 2025, including the Great Lakes region.

Who owns it now

Spirit is owned by Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc., a private company based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. Its ownership has changed hands several times, according to Wikipedia's history of Spencer Gifts: entertainment giant MCA owned Spencer's from the 1960s, followed by Seagram and then Vivendi. In 2003 Vivendi sold it to GB Palladin, a joint venture of Gordon Brothers Group and Palladin Capital Group. ACON Investments bought it in 2007, and in 2015 ACON sold the company to Spencer's management.

Steven Silverstein has run the company since the 2003 sale. When he joined, Spirit had 130 stores, Fortune reported.

Spencer Spirit does not report its finances. Moody's estimated Spencer's and Spirit together brought in about $1.9 billion in 2023, and Spirit's roughly two-month season earns more than the year-round Spencer's chain, according to Fortune. Spirit hires more than 52,000 seasonal workers.

Yes, it just made a big purchase

In August, Spencer Spirit Holdings agreed to buy Hot Topic, BoxLunch and Her Universe from the private equity firm Sycamore Partners, Retail Dive reported. Terms were not disclosed; Bloomberg reported a price of about $350 million, according to Retail Dive. The deal closed in early September, Fortune reported. Sycamore had taken Hot Topic private in 2013 for about $600 million.

The combined company has more than 3,000 stores in North America. Hot Topic keeps its California headquarters and its CEO, Steve Vranes, who now reports to Silverstein.

How the pop-up model works

Spirit does not pay market rent, Fortune reported. It pays landlords a lump sum to use space that would otherwise sit empty, under leases that last only as long as the store is open, eight to 10 weeks. "We're the empty seat on the airplane," Silverstein told Fortune. Leases have included a clause letting Spirit walk away if the landlord finds a permanent tenant, The Hustle reported, citing Bloomberg.

That model has made Spirit a fixture of shuttered big-box space. About 100 Spirit stores this fall are in former Party City buildings, according to Fortune.

Spirit in the Dayton area

Spirit's local footprint follows the region's retail closings. In a Dayton.com story published after Elder-Beerman's stores closed, Spirit was opening in the former Beavercreek Toys "R" Us, former Elder-Beerman stores in Middletown and Piqua, and a former Mattress Firm across from The Greene. That same season Halloween City, Party City's pop-up chain, took the former Elder-Beerman at the Mall at Fairfield Commons and a former OfficeMax on Miamisburg-Centerville Road.

WDTN reported six local Spirit stores for fall 2025 and eight for fall 2026, which opened Aug. 1 in "spaces that once housed major retailers": Beavercreek, Huber Heights, Deerfield Township, Miamisburg, Middletown, Piqua, Riverside and Springfield.

The competition

Spirit's closest copycat is gone. Party City filed for bankruptcy a second time in December 2024 and closed its nearly 700 stores by the end of February 2025, Fortune reported; its Halloween City pop-ups went with it, according to Bisnow. Mass retailers fill some of the gap: Walmart, Target and Amazon sell costumes, and Michaels, At Home, HomeGoods and Walmart have expanded Halloween décor, Bisnow reported.

Nationally, about one-third of Halloween shoppers plan to visit a specialty costume store this year, and discount stores are the top destination for early shoppers, according to the National Retail Federation's 2026 survey. The NRF expects Halloween spending of about $13.5 billion, up from $13.1 billion in 2025, with about $4.4 billion on costumes.

Locally, the oldest competitor is family-owned. Foy's opened as a variety store in 1929 in Osborn, the town that became Fairborn, and is now run by Mike Foy, the founder's grandson, with a fourth generation in line, the Dayton Daily News reported. It stocks costumes year-round.

Analysis: what tariffs likely did to costume prices

This section is The Despoiler's analysis of public information. Spirit Halloween does not publish its prices or import costs, and we have not confirmed how much its shelf prices changed.

Spirit is heavily exposed to trade policy. About 75 to 80 percent of its merchandise is designed, developed and sourced by the company itself, mostly in Asia, Fortune reported. Many costumes and decorations sold in the U.S. are made in China, Bisnow and Fortune reported.

The timing of those tariffs matters because Halloween goods are ordered months ahead. In April 2025 the administration put a 145 percent surcharge on Chinese goods, then paused most of it in May, Bisnow reported. That was the window when retailers were buying for the 2025 season. The Halloween & Costume Association warned that spring that a $20 costume could cost $40, Fortune reported, and Spirit canceled the grand-opening event at its New Jersey flagship that year, citing "international disruptions and supply chain challenges," according to Bisnow.

On Feb. 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the emergency-powers law the administration had relied on did not authorize tariffs, The Associated Press reported. A temporary 10 percent tariff under a different law took effect four days later, was raised to 15 percent and expired in late July, according to TariffTax.org. Older Section 301 tariffs of 7.5 to 25 percent on many Chinese goods were not affected.

Put together, the most likely picture is this: goods for the 2025 season cost more to bring in, and at least part of that cost reached shoppers. Goods for 2026 were bought under lower but still elevated rates. Retail prices rarely fall as fast as costs, so 2026 prices may not have returned to pre-2025 levels. The NRF's numbers fit that picture without proving it: average planned spending per person barely moved, from $114.45 to $115.14, while about a third of shoppers said they would compare prices and 34 percent planned to buy items they could reuse.

One open question: importers of record are entitled to refunds of the duties the Supreme Court struck down, an estimated $175 billion nationwide, according to TariffTax.org. Refunds go to the importing company, not to shoppers who paid higher prices. Whether Spencer Spirit is owed refunds, and how much, is not public. The Despoiler has asked Spencer Spirit Holdings whether it paid those duties, whether it has sought refunds and how its prices changed in 2025 and 2026. This story will be updated with any response.

Halloween stores within 30 miles of downtown Dayton

Independent shops and Spirit Halloween only; big-box retailers are not listed. Distances are straight-line from downtown Dayton. Spirit's seasonal stores typically close a few days after Halloween.

Spirit's Deerfield Township store, 8125 Arbor Square Drive, is about 31 miles away. Store phone numbers and hours come from public business listings; Spirit's stores share one customer-service number. Know a local Halloween shop we missed? Send a tip.

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