Nevertheless, we were curious about how people are feeling about celebrations this year – are they getting more excited about upcoming holidays? With Halloween not that far away, we decided to use it as a case study to find out.

First, let’s take a look at how the volume of Halloween mentions looks historically.

Starting with a quick glance at 2020, we can see how Halloween mentions jumped in March when the pandemic was declared. This was driven by costume talk (particularly around Joe Exotic), and concerns about Covid disruption come October. Mentions in 2020 remained above average for the rest of the year, and into 2021.

To bring us up to date, Halloween mentions are relatively high right now. For the year to date, they’re 4% higher than they were in 2020.

That 4% is a modest increase on a big year, so it’s not to be sniffed at. Compared to the 2016-19 average, Halloween mentions are up 31%. And, using that 4%, we can estimate the size of the Halloween conversation to come.

While mentions are unlikely to be as high as they were in 2016, 2021 is set to make up a lot of ground. Of course, this is just a quick and rough estimate, so the actual number could be wildly different, especially depending on the state of Covid at the time.

How we’re feeling about Halloween will also have an impact on the number of mentions. Below we’ve figured out the net sentiment of the Halloween conversation for the years 2016 to 2021 to see what this tells us.

To work out net sentiment for each year’s mentions, we simply removed the neutral mentions, and subtracted the negative mention percentage value from the positive mention one. In other words, a similar approach to working out a politician’s net approval. The higher the number, the more positive the conversation, with a score of 100 meaning it’s 100% positive.

Aside from the small increase in sentiment from 2016 to 2017, generally sentiment has fallen in line with volume, except in 2020. This was due to people posting negative mentions about how the pandemic would disrupt Halloween celebrations.

Based on this, how does our 4% estimate look? An increase in sentiment does suggest an increase in volume, but what about Covid’s effect?

If, somehow, Halloween goes ahead relatively normally, we can expect this growing excitement to translate into a mention increase and steady sentiment levels. If 2021’s Halloween goes the way of 2020’s, we can also expect an increase in mentions as people decry another lost chance to dress up or to take their kids trick or treating, but net sentiment will likely take a dip.

In reality, what does all this translate into? Well, if Halloween celebrations can go ahead unimpeded, we might expect to see one of the biggest spooky celebrations in years. Retailers, pay attention – costume sales could be on the up this year, and in-store Halloween displays should be front and center.

Essentially it seems like a safe bet that Halloween is going to get a lot of attention in 2021, no matter the outcome. We just hope as many people as possible can enjoy it how they want, safely.

And yes, we’re keeping an eye on Thanksgiving and Christmas mentions too – we’ll keep you posted.

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Stay safe,

The Brandwatch React team