On Monday, a St. Helens public works crew got to work with backhoes and forklifts on one of the town’s biggest annual projects: unpacking the Halloween storage units.
Along with a few Santas and a Statue of Liberty (the city also stores props for other holidays here), these two city warehouses are primarily filled with more than 3,000 square feet of Halloween decor.
Over five weekends, the city’s Spirit of Halloweentown event draws an estimated 90,000 people to this city of 14,000 residents. The celebration pays homage to the 1998 Disney Channel movie “Halloweentown,” which was primarily filmed in St. Helens.
City crews used heavy machinery to unload several towering scarecrows, a massive raven statue and a 10-foot-tall metal pumpkin, then trucked them about a mile away to downtown St. Helens.
It takes two days to unload all the Halloween props, and another two weeks to fully transform downtown St. Helens into Halloweentown. This year’s festival opens Sept. 27 and runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday through Oct. 26, and from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31.
On Monday, a fiberglass jack-o’-lantern, modeled after the one seen in the “Halloweentown” movies, was the first item placed in downtown’s Plaza Square – just as it appeared in the film.
“Halloweentown” starred Debbie Reynolds as a witch training her 13-year-old granddaughter, Marnie, in the family’s magical ways – while saving the townsfolk of Halloweentown. The movie spawned three sequels and became a beloved holiday TV classic.
Spirit of Halloweentown is a city event, but St. Helens contracts with an events company to manage it. Last year, for the first time, that contract was awarded to Portland-based Treadway Events.
“We actually, as a team, sat down and watched the movie probably about 15 to 20 times in a week,” said Treadway event coordinator Brittany Hummel. “We were all sending each other screenshots. ‘Oh, we need to recreate this,’ or ‘We need to recreate that.’ ”
What’s new this year
Last year, the contract with Treadway Events was finalized only a month before the event, and construction downtown limited space for vendors and activities.
This year, the festival will have an expanded footprint by making use of the newly renovated riverfront park.
The former Masonic building, at 231 S. First St., will house a redesigned, kid-friendly haunted house with a castle theme. Upstairs in the same building is an all-ages, Area 51-inspired “alien encounter” with an alien-themed bar serving cocktails and mocktails. There’s also an animal exhibit with live snakes, spiders and other creepy critters.
St. Helens’ ‘Black Friday’
Shop owners around the Plaza Square already have their Halloween decor in their front windows. For downtown retailers, the first of October is their Black Friday.
“Halloween, for us, is the biggest by far,” said Heather Dailey, who has a booth at 2Cs Vendors Mall. “It completely blows Christmas out of the water just because it brings tens of thousands of people each weekend.”
By September, most shops stock at least some Halloween merchandise, along with items related to another movie filmed partly in St. Helens: the vampire romance “Twilight.”
“It just gets bigger every year, and it’s really good for all of the businesses down here,” said Breezy Riggs, co-owner of Endlessound Records. “I don’t know if our downtown would be quite what it is without Halloweentown, to be honest.”
Halloweentown through the years
St. Helens’ first Spirit of Halloweentown parade was organized in 1998 by local civic groups to celebrate the film’s release. The event went dark for a few years before being revived as a one-day celebration by the St. Helens Tourism Committee. When that committee disbanded, the city took over management and began using third-party contractors to produce the event.
In 2015, actress Kimberly J. Brown (who played Marnie) came to St. Helens for the pumpkin lighting ceremony, and the event went viral.
“It took off really big after that,” Hummel said, “and then I think it grew to a place that people were not expecting.”
Today, Spirit of Halloweentown brings in approximately $1 million in revenue a year. After costs, that’s still enough to help fund the city’s other big annual events, including the Fourth of July celebration, the 13 Nights on the River summer concert series and December’s Holiday in the Plaza.
What you need to know about this year’s event
Hummel recommends arriving to the event early. Lines grow longer in the afternoon, especially as the 8:30 p.m. pumpkin lighting ceremony approaches in the Plaza Square. The final three weekends are always the busiest.
“There is going to be waiting, there are going to be lines, it’s a small town,” she said, “so the infrastructure here is not really meant for big events.”
That was part of the reason the Spirit of Halloweentown parade, which was organized by a local business owner, was discontinued last year. It simply got too big to manage.
Hummel said she hopes to work with the parade’s organizer to bring it back in 2026, possibly with a shorter route. She also has plans to add even more “Halloweentown” inspired decor to the town.
“I’ve watched it so many times,” Hummel said of the film. “My first crush – and I’ve already told him this – was Luke from ‘Halloweentown.’ I love this movie so much. It was the first Halloween movie I could watch without being scared, so it was a family tradition to watch it.”
This year’s celebrity guests
Actor Phillip Van Dyke, who played Luke – the bad boy goblin turned good guy – will be part of the festivities on Oct. 4-5. Other celebrity guests include Emily Roeske (Sophie, Marnie’s sister) and J. Paul Zimmerman (Dylan, Marnie’s brother). Kimberly J. Brown (Marnie) and her husband, Daniel Kountz (Kal), will appear Sept. 27-28.
Jackson Rathbone, who played Jasper Hale in Twilight, will appear Oct. 11-12.
Celebrity photo ops are sold separately from general admission and can be purchased on the Spirit of Halloweentown website.
Tickets and parking
General admission is $40 for adults (ages 13+) and $20 for children ages 6-12, plus fees. Children 5 and under are free. Tickets include all-day access to performances and activities in the Boo Bash Pavilion, the hay maze and harvest games zone, the haunted house, the alien encounter, and the live animal exhibit at the Masonic building. A train ride through St. Helens past filming locations from both Halloweentown and Twilight—including Bella Swan’s house—is also included.
Some parts of Spirit of Halloweentown are free and open to the public, including the pumpkin lighting at Plaza Square. Downtown businesses decorate for the season, and roving performers include dancing witches and jugglers. A costume contest is held from 3 to 4 p.m. each event day, with a new best pet costume category this year. A full list of activities and performance times is available at spiritofhalloweentown.co.
St. Helens is about 30 miles north of Portland. There’s no public transit or reliable ride-share, and street parking is limited. Visitors are encouraged to park in the designated lot at 1810 Old Portland Road (cost is $25 plus fees) and use the shuttle to reach downtown.
This year, the Portland Spirit is also offering 1.5-hour river cruises to St. Helens. Tickets range from $95 to $115 and include Spirit of Halloweentown admission — but note, the return cruise departs before the pumpkin lighting ceremony.
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