SALEM — It began as a weekend festival, a three-day event featuring costume balls and a horribles parade, beginning and ending on Halloween weekend.
In the nearly 30 years since, Haunted Happenings has become a monthlong celebration that draws some 250,000 revelers to the Witch City and pumps an estimated $9 million into the local economy, according to the city's tourist office, Destination Salem.
It is a boon to hotels, restaurants and retail shops — it's their biggest season of the year — but a bane to many residents who struggle with traffic, litter and crowds. And it continues to irk some who think it twists the historic nature of the 1692 witch trials.
For better or worse, Haunted Happenings has become the North Shore's version of Mardi Gras.
And this year's festival, amid mild fall weather, could be the busiest yet, said Kate Fox, director of Destination Salem. So far, the number of visitors is up 12 percent over last year.
But it was not too long ago that Salem wasn't the place to be seen in costume on Halloween night.
If you ask those who have watched Haunted Happenings grow over the years, they are hard-pressed to say exactly how it happened.
"You can't point to any one thing," said Kathie Driscoll Gauthier, a Salem resident who coordinated the first Horribles Parade in 1982 and who served as Haunted Happenings chairwoman in 1997. Walt Disney couldn't have planned a theme park better, she said.
Those close to the festival over the years credit a collaborative effort by the business community, the city and tourism officials, along with an organic growth of the festival, for its success.
Some point to a mid-1990s marketing push to bring Haunted Happenings to Boston and beyond, at a time when Halloween had become the second-largest consumer holiday in the nation. A growing curiosity about witches and the paranormal, and the 300th anniversary of the Salem witch trials in 1992, also helped, they said.
The festival started in 1982, but the rowdy crowds really didn't arrive until Halloween night in 1997, said Gauthier, who used to own a shop downtown on Washington Street called A Touch of the Past.
"It just exploded," Gauthier said. "It was completely unexpected."
Among the lessons learned that year, she noted, was that the city needed more police to control the crowds.
'Witches Weekend'
Thirty years ago, the witch trials was not something this city, with its rich maritime past and cultural museums, was particularly fond of embracing.
Then, some in the city decided to have a little fun around Halloween.
You can trace Haunted Happenings' roots to a Witches Weekend in 1981, said Tina Jordan, director of the Salem Witch Museum, which now draws 60,000 visitors during October.
The Witches Weekend's activities were co-chaired by Susannah Stuart, the former Salem Witch Museum director, and Gloria Lampropoulous, and it involved hotel package stays, a witches ball, a haunted house, a medieval festival and a screening of "Dracula" at the Salem Theatre. There were shuttle tours and a "Grand Ghoul" parade, Jordan said. Salem's official witch, Laurie Cabot, was also involved.
The first time Haunted Happenings took place was on an unseasonably warm Halloween weekend in 1982. It featured parades, costume balls, ghost walks and a horribles parade, among other things.
Stuart and Joan Gormalley, who was then president of the Salem Chamber of Commerce, organized events over three days, including the chamber's own haunted house and a witch's brew contest at Victoria Station. McDougall Associates designed brochures, Parker Brothers printed them and Michaud Tours was a sponsor.
Thousands flocked to Salem and jammed the East India Mall, according to news reports. Cabot judged costumes for the Horribles Parade.
The event paid homage to the witch hysteria with an exhibit at the Essex Institute called: "Salem Witches, Documents of an Early American Drama."
But it also embraced traditional Halloween themes, and it brought together museums and retailers.
Over the next decade, the festival stretched over 10 days instead of Halloween weekend.
A turning point
Haunted Happenings seemed to gain momentum when the city commemorated the 300th anniversary of the witch trials.
"I think a key turning point was the 1992 tercentenary commemoration," said David Shea, who was chief of staff to former Mayor Neil Harrington. The yearlong event created international exposure for Salem. Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel attended the dedication of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial in August 1992.
Linda McConchie was hired to oversee the tercentenary, and she brought that energy forward as the city's first tourism director under Harrington, said David Butler, the Salem Trolley owner who has watched the festival's growth over the years.
Eventually, the event outgrew the Chamber of Commerce. Instead of being run as a chamber event, it became an entity of its own in the mid-1990s, said Teri Kalgren, a Pickering Wharf shop owner and director of the Witches Education Bureau.
By 1995, Haunted Happenings had grown from a weekend-long festival to one that kicked off on Friday the 13th. It was now the city's largest tourism draw, with an estimated 150,000 people visiting Salem. That year, the city held its first Halloween parade, featuring legions of costumed schoolchildren and drawing 20,000 people.
Marketing was a big part of growing Haunted Happenings. Mariellen Norris, the city's former tourism director, did some of that, and eventually a special events marketing firm based in Natick, SportsSmith, was hired to promote and run the festival.
Harrington, now the town manager in Salisbury, credits the business community for expanding Haunted Happenings. Back then, he said, the festival was seen as a way to bring tourists to the city in the fall at a time when studies showed Salem was seen as a summer destination.
"The city's involvement revolved around the parade and promoting the concept that most of the month of October could be pitched as a unique opportunity to visit Salem," Harrington said.
One thing Harrington laments is the influx of young people looking to party on the weekends, as opposed to tourists. That aspect was not something anyone had envisioned.
Haunted Happenings has managed to survive growing pains and political turmoil. Nowadays, it is launched on Oct. 1 and attracts national and international media coverage. As it's grown, the city has also gotten more adept at handling it and controlling the crowds, by increasing the police presence, shifting to more family-friendly activities, and moving the bulk of the crowds out with a fireworks finale that signals the end of the festivities.
As for the future of Haunted Happenings, most of those involved in it over the years credit Mayor Kim Driscoll for not being scared to promote it.
"God love Mayor Driscoll," Gauthier said, "because she has the positive foresight to embrace it."
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or by e-mail at eforman@salemnews.com.
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