Best-known for its high-quality masks and costumes, Ghoulish Productions is a global Halloween and party supplier, with more than 60 years in business. Sales director Esteban Esponda spoke to Ed Avis, executive director of the NCA (National Costume Association), about plans for this year’s Halloween.
Ed: “How important is Halloween to Ghoulish?”
Esteban: “We get 90% of our sales during the Halloween season, so it’s very important. It’s quite uncertain what will happen at Halloween this year, but as a company we want to be really supportive and get the Halloween products into the independent stores and help them make the celebration a unique one this year. We want to help Halloween take away all the stress and pressure of this year. That’s one of our goals this season.”
Ed: “How has Covid-19 affected Ghoulish?”
Esponda: “From a sales perspective, some markets were more affected than others. For example, the European market has dropped 40% from last year, and our Mexican market is down 50%. In the US, one of our main markets, it’s not as badly damaged, but I think it’s down 10% from last year. In total, our sales are 20 – 30% down from last year.
We normally hire more people during the high season, but this year we had to keep the people we had. We didn’t close the factory, but we made double-turns, with some people working in the morning and some at night, to create more space in the factory.””
Ed: “Tell us how you develop new products.”
Esteban: “We have two departments that help develop new products. The first is the marketing area, which analyses consumer trends and gives us direction on what people are buying. The second is design and innovation, which is creating totally new stuff that’s not anywhere on the market yet.
Normally our process for creating a new mask can be six months long. But if it’s a trendy item that needs fast creating, we do what’s called a ‘quick hit’. For example, right now we’re in the presidential campaign season, so we have just a few weeks to design and create masks for that.”
Ghoulish Productions is one of eight NCA vendor members who have supported the association’s Help Halloween Happen campaign.
