It was a witching hour - a haunted hour - a night of monsters and madmen, curses and candy.
Allira Whitten Hay from Lake Macquarie had a haunting on her mind when she put together her costume. She wanted to do scary make-up, she said, and a dress, settling on a ghoulish nun's habit. This wasn't her first rodeo, and when asked about the best part of the holiday, she was emphatic: "Lollies," she said and smiled.
"I think we should embrace Halloween because the kids love it," Mellissa Thompson said. "They are having fun. What's the harm in it? The world's too serious."
Ms Thompson and her daughter, Lacey Fellows, who is four, usually coordinate their outfits. Last year, they were Wilma and Pebbles from The Flintstones. For her second Halloween, Lacey wanted to branch out.
She and her mum made her Wednesday costume, inspired by the Addams Family character, while Ms Thompson went for a Riding Hood aesthetic.
"I dress up with Lacey every year," Ms Thompson said.
As the wild hunt of spectres, witches, monsters and ghouls drifted into the Wallsend Village carpark on Thursday evening for the all-ages community event, dubbed 'Wallsend Frights: Dance of the Dead' to mark the occasion, performers guiled observers through a haunted house and entertained the crowd.
Lapsed wiccan ("sort of," she said and smiled) and long-time Wallsend resident Linda Pinkerton - who went by Witch Galinda for the evening - had set up a stall of holiday-themed trinkets and crafts. She said the holiday was growing steadily in the culture as Halloween gained more steam outside the US, particularly in Europe.
Australians have been spending more on Halloween almost annually for the past five years, as the holiday quickly becomes the fastest-growing retail event in the country. Around one in five will observe the occasion in one form or another in 2024, spending almost $100 each and injecting a cumulative $450 million into the retail sector.
But experts say it's not just the kids who are celebrating Halloween but grown-ups as well. Adults in their mid-30s to late-40s accounted for the largest bracket of Halloween observers, according to an Australian Retailers Association poll in September that tipped an estimated $7-a-pop increase in spending this year compared to last.
The industry analyst said trick-or-treating was the big ticket item, but shoppers also spent money on costumes and lollies.
The rise of online shopping and its homogenising effect on global market trends have been cited as the reasons behind the growing mainstream appeal of the holiday with ancient Celtic roots, originating in Ireland and spreading abroad with the Irish diaspora driven by the 19th-century famine.
The US market has undoubtedly led the modern commercial holiday - Americans are tipped to spend more than $11 billion this year - but dozens of countries, including Australia, have recognised observances, though often linked or overshadowed by other national holidays.
"The previous resistance that existed amongst Australians toward the US has waned as our focus on the UK 'ages out', and global youth culture is increasingly centred on the US," American studies expert Rodney Taveria at the University of Sydney said.
