They're Dying to Be Part of It

More than 30 years ago, a few guys who worked in Knott's Berry Farm's Ghost Town thought it would be fun to throw on costumes for Halloween and scare some unsuspecting guests.

"It wasn't really thought out," admitted park spokeswoman Michele Wischmeyer. "It was just last minute."

Since that first year in 1973, when Sinister Seymour served as Knott's inaugural "Ghost Host," the Knott's Scary Farm Halloween Haunt has become the park's most successful promotion and has evolved into the biggest Halloween park event in the world.

It has spawned countless imitators and driven dozens of theme parks to follow suit. This year, Universal Studios Hollywood is reviving a Halloween event that it buried after the 2000 season. And for the first time in its 51-year history, Disneyland has decided to go for the ghoul -- only in a not-so-scary Magic Kingdom-esque way.

Starting today, Disney will deck out the park for Halloween, tapping into the holiday's growing mainstream appeal and lucrative potential.

"Halloween is no longer a day," said Joey Michaels, senior producer for entertainment at Disneyland Resort. "It's a big season."

Americans last year spent nearly $3.3 billion on Halloween merchandise, snatching up candy, costumes, home decorations, pumpkins and other products, according to the National Retail Federation. That number is expected to rise this year to nearly $5 billion. The amusement park industry, which brought in $11.2 billion in 2005, estimates that Halloween generated $275 million of that total.

"Look at people's frontyards," Wischmeyer said. "You used to only see that kind of effort and money go into Christmas decorations and now Halloween is rivaling that. People are out there and wanting to participate in more themed events. It's only natural that everyone is trying to bank off that."

The number of for-profit haunted houses is also on the rise. Even zoos, aquariums and museums are getting in on the act, said Tiffany Fessler, a spokeswoman for the International Assn. of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay, Fla., will present Zoo Boo, complete with a Halloween animal show featuring creatures that "creep, crawl, swoop and slither." Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach turns into a "Scarium," where children can trick or treat and learn about the monsters of the deep. And at Santa Ana's Discovery Science Center, kids can learn about the Mexican legend of the chupacabra, a blood-sucking beast, as part of a spooky science exhibit.