Thursday 26 October 2017

Halloween 2017

iReach Insights Press Release   
SIGN UP, TAKE PART in our surveys for free and GET REWARDED! iReach Conversations


  • This year 41% of people will dress up for Halloween which is a huge increase compared to last year with just 20% of people dressing up.
  • 27% of people will make their own costumes.
  • 26% of adults plan to spend nothing of Halloween this year, differing dramatically by age [18% - 16-34 years, 28% - 35-54 years, 37% - 55+ years].
  • 10% of people in Ireland are afraid of Evil Spirits.


Halloween is almost upon us again, and with the Bank Holiday Monday and midterm break next week iReach Insights investigated how Halloween in celebrated in Ireland. In our recent survey, iReach Insights asked 1,000 adults about their plans for this Halloween and how much they think they will spend this year.

The survey questions were included in the Nationally Representative iReach Consumer Decisions Omnibus run between of 19th  October and the 24th of October and has and has a 3% Confidence Interval and 95% Confidence Level.





50% of people in Ireland will celebrate Halloween this year. When asked “How will you celebrate Halloween this year?” 34% will dress up and have a party, 26% will celebrate but don’t have any plans at present, 24% will watch a scary movie and 11% celebrate it in a pub with some pints and 17% will do something else. It has emerged there’s a significant difference between the genders with 16% of men planning to go to the pub compared to 6% of women

Surprisingly this year 41% of people will be dressing up, which a dramatic increase from 20% of the last year. 

Where do people buy their costumes? Interestingly 27% of people make their own, 16% buy them online, 13% buy them in a Halloween store, 13% use old ones, 10% buy them at a discount store and 21% buy them elsewhere.

For those who think that Halloween is another money making, commercial holiday, that’s not the case. In fact, of those that will celebrate it, 26% will spend nothing, 60% of people are planning to spend less than €50, 10% will spend somewhere between €50 - €100 and just 4% will spend more than €100.

Any differences between men and women about this? Results showed more women (65%) spend up to €50 which is significantly higher than men (54%). What about any differences in terms of ages group? The older you are the more likely you are to spend no money on Halloween. One in five (18%) millennials will spend nothing whereas one in 3 (37%) of those over 55 years will spend nothing.

What about pumpkin carving? 53% of people decided to not carve it for this Halloween, 32% will and 15% are not sure yet.

Halloween can be a spooky time of year, and we asked what are people are most afraid of? Evil spirits (10%) are at the top of the list, followed by Demons (8%), the Dark (8%), Devils (6%), Ghosts (5%) and Witches (5%). 3 out of 4 (76%) state that they aren’t scared of anything at Halloween! Now the question is: Who is scared most of Evil spirits? The millennials (16-34) are most scared at 16% and the older age groups are less scared – ages 35-54 (7%) and ages 55+ (5%).

For more information on these research findings please feel free to call iReach on 01-2143740 or email Oisin at oisin.byrne@ireachhq.com


What about you? Share and comment!

SIGN UP, TAKE PART in our surveys for free and GET REWARDED! iReach Conversations