**Prelim Season is defined as the first 7 weeks of the Full Season.
Retailer Party City, known for its October Halloween high season, was already seeing declines in spending before the pandemic hit. During the Halloween season* of 2019, before COVID-19, both Party City and its seasonal offshoot Halloween City were seeing YoY declines of -8% and -29%, respectively, the declines likely due to store closures that took place that year. Unsurprisingly, both stores saw their growth tank even further in 2020 during the thick of the pandemic.
Gauging how the current season will shape up before the 2021 Halloween weekend begins, in the 7 weeks leading up to Halloween this year, both stores have seen YoY growth of 12% for Party City and 391% for Halloween City, though this is of course relative to a very anomalous 2020. When looking at a Yo2Y perspective to account for the pandemic, both Party City and Halloween City are still in the red compared to a “normal” 2019, but notably 6 points better than the Yo2Y declines during that same period in 2019.
With most Americans vaccinated and raring to return to normal, however, there may yet be hope on the horizon for the two stores.
