Cobwebs hang from the corners and plastic corpses greet the clientele from the store-front window of Safari Pearl in downtown Moscow. Inside the ringing of the entrance bell and the cackles from Halloween displays create a seasonal cacophony as employees and customers prepare for the holiday.
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Mitchell Nelson tries on a battle helmet for his Halloween costume. Nelson plans to dress as a spartan from the movie “300” this Halloween. Safari Pearl owner, Kathy Spraque, said Halloween is the store’s favorite time of year.
“It is fair to say that Halloween is our favorite time of the year,” Kathy Sprague, co-owner of Safari Pearl, said. “We love Halloween, and we definitely focus on the costumes most during this span of time. We tend to outsell most online companies and competitors in this area so we’re very confident when this time rolls around. There are theme parties year round so we sell costumes during those, but we hit a bump in sales during the Halloween season. This bump also helps to bring attention toward some of our other focuses like comics and games.”
Part of the reason Sprague feels so confident is because of the gifted staff Safari Pearl has.
“We have four different make-up artists in our staff who are very knowledgeable. They are great in helping the customer pick out make-up that matches their costume. Usually a lot of them get involved in some of the community events like ZFun’s Bump in the Night, Garden Lounge’s Halloween party or the Zombie Walk.”
This year will mark the fifth time Safari Pearl has participated in the Moscow Zombie Walk, which starts at Friendship Square and winds down to the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, but this is the second year of a new approach.
“Last year we played Night of the Living Dead and that was greeted with a large response, so we are trying to make it a yearly event,” she said.
The number of events Safari Pearl is involved with goes past Halloween into early November. The Tabikat Drag Show, a staple for the LGBT community for the last 17 years, is scheduled on Nov. 3 and is organized in collaboration with the Inland Oasis, an LGBT volunteer program. “We’ve always had a great amount of community involvement and we’ve always tried to be as involved, from giving out comics during Halloween to the events we’re involved in. It’s an exciting fun season,” Sprague said.
Derek Kowastch can be reached at [email protected]