SALEM — The city of Salem is once again expected to break its record for total visitors this year as crowds poured into this Halloweekend to experience the spooky attractions, historical sights and thousands of costume-wearing visitors that have made the city famous for its Halloween spirit.
Destination Salem, the city’s official destination marketing organization, won’t have the full scope of this year’s visitor numbers until the end of the month. But officials are confident the city has drawn a greater number of visitors than last year when more than 1 million people descended upon the Witch City despite the occasional rain.
While only time will tell, Destination Salem Executive Director Ashley Judge said she’s expecting an increase of about 5-7% more than last year’s total of 1.2 million visitors.
Visitors such as the Hernandez family were part of those 1.2 million who visited last year. The returned from New Jersey this year dressed as Super Mario characters for their second Halloween in Salem to make up for last year’s inclement weather.
“This is one of the many group costumes that we all agreed on that have five characters – we’re big Mario Party players,” said Desiree Hernandez, who was dressed as Princess Peach. “This is our second time in Salem, we had to come back because it was raining. So this year we came back with a vengeance, and we’re gonna take Salem by storm!”
Emily Halm and Nestor Canenguez from Somerville, who dressed as secret agent Perry the Platypus and his nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz from the Disney Channel series “Phineas and Ferb,” also had their second Halloween in Salem this year.
“There’s definitely a lot more people, and we planned a little bit better because of that,” Canenguez, who took the train downtown said. “It’s nice seeing all the different costumes, because you see a lot of new things every single year, and that’s why we come even though it’s crowded. And all the vendors here too are awesome.”
Visitors such as Nicole Hofer, who made the trip with her friends from Fargo, North Dakota, for her first Salem Halloween, nevertheless fit right in with the Halloween veterans with her elaborate costume portraying her and her friends as 1920s street gang members from the series “Peaky Blinders.”
“I’ve never done anything like this,” Hofer said. “I guess the closest thing I could compare it to is the Minneapolis Renaissance Fair, where people also get dressed up to get into the spirit, and there’s a lot of fairies and demons and all those themes mixed together- but this is just awesome.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum – longtime visitor Janine DeGusto from Wakefield was celebrating her sixth Halloween in Salem, wearing an amalgamation of cobwebs, bones, spiders, and other Halloween season staples on top of a skeleton costume that reflected her intense passion for the holiday.
“We decided this year to go for Halloween, and so I thought about — what is Halloween to me?” she said. “And it’s pretty much anything creepy, skeletal and bony, and I decided to just shove it all in one place.”
Another longtime Halloween visitor, Michael Tobey, sported a costume that attracted more attention than most — as it included a white suit jacket and pants from his time working as a nurse that he allowed passersby to take a pen and leave their mark on.
Aside from a fun way to interact with visitors, Tobey also hoped to use the costume to draw attention to the message on his shirt reading “don’t assume your freedoms are assured,” advocating for current issues like women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive health.
“I do this all the time now and I meet so many people,” he said. “What I really enjoy is just the interaction with people.
“And when people try to tip me I say — ‘no, participation in this art project and your smile is my tip.’”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202