SU students will go out three nights, buy three costumes and decide what to wear this week

This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday, and students plan to take advantage. In an Orange Pulse survey of 100 SU students, more than half shared their plan to go out on all three nights of the Halloweekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A further 31% say they plan to go out twice, while less than 3% of students don’t plan to go out at all.

The costumes tell a further story as 89% of the students say they plan to wear a costume, and 71% say they plan to have at least two. Just under a third say they will have three, while one in 10 students said they will have four or more. Nearly 27% of respondents this year said they were sticking to one, an 11% increase from last year’s Pulse survey.

Costumes are not free. Nearly half of students said they will spend at least $50 on costumes for this weekend, with 19% saying they expect to exceed $100. On the contrary, 24% reported spending less than $25, and 10 students said they will wear things from their closet.

Amazon is the marketplace of choice for these students: 62% shared that one or more pieces of their costumes are coming from Amazon or other online retailers, outpacing closets (43%) and Spirit Halloween (37%).

First-year Paul Hakimian is at the cheap end: one costume, under $25, if he wears it at all.

Students are spending that money down to the wire. Half of respondents said they decided what to wear this week, a further 11% said they were “reading this and still have no idea.” One student even plans to decide what to wear the day of, while only 8% had their outfits locked over a month ago.

Group costumes are a favorite. 78% of respondents reported doing a group or couples costume one or more nights. But 38% said they’ve had a group costume disintegrate because someone bailed or nobody could commit. One senior said her friends tried Scooby-Doo last year, but “half of them ended up bailing.”

Senior Harry Robbins is going out three nights with three costumes and no idea yet what any of them are. His worst ever, he said: “Patrick Star onesie.”

When asked what outfit they expect to see the most this weekend, a quarter of students said prisoner, cop, or both. That was followed by athletes and jerseys (12), superheroes (9) and angels or devils (8). Last year’s most common pick, the Lorax, got just one vote.

On a different note, there are several costumes students are very excited about: Tyler Durden, Cameron Frye, MF Doom, Freddie Mercury, the Instagram block screen and three separate inflatable zebras. The regretful ones range from a bedsheet ghost to three straight years as a banana.

“I will admit it was a GOOD costume but is aging worse by the day,” Hakimian said of his fourth-grade Donald Trump.

The numbers reveal that Halloweekend is longer and more expensive than the actual holiday, and planned as intently as an unscheduled Friday night out. Three nights, several costumes, hundreds of dollars spent, all planned the week of. Remember next year, plan ahead.