Halloween 2026: viral Buddy the Unicorn tops searches, witches top plans

Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, October 31, and two very different lists show what people are planning to wear. Google's annual Frightgeist ranking of trending costume searches in the United States, published in mid-October, puts Buddy the Unicorn, the killer children's-TV mascot from the horror film Buddy, at number one, ahead of the viral stress toy NeeDoh and Nikki from the horror film Obsession. The National Retail Federation's (NRF) consumer survey, which asks people what they actually plan to dress as, points the other way: the witch and the vampire top the adult list, and Spider-Man leads among children. A separate Goodwill survey says most costume shoppers this year plan to thrift or make at least part of their outfit.

The gap between the two lists says a lot about how young people find their costume ideas. Google's Frightgeist does not count how many people search for a costume. It ranks the costumes whose searches have jumped the most compared with the same period last year. That favours anything that went viral in the past twelve months: a new horror film, a meme, a toy that took over short-video feeds. A stress-relief squishy toy finishing second on a costume list is a good example of how quickly an internet craze can turn into something people want to wear.

The NRF survey measures intention instead. It was carried out by Prosper Insights & Analytics among 7,889 US consumers from September 1 to 9, 2026, and it shows that when people actually decide, most fall back on costumes that are easy to put together, cheap and instantly recognisable. A witch needs a hat and a dark outfit; a vampire needs a cape. The NRF also found that online searches were the leading source of costume ideas, cited by 32% of people, down from 37% last year, with retail stores and costume shops second at 26%.

The thrift and DIY trend links the two. According to Goodwill's 2026 Halloween survey, 60% of costume shoppers mainly make their own costumes and 71% look for pieces they can reuse after the night is over. A Goodwill retail executive put the average price of an off-the-rack costume at about $50. For a young person on a tight budget, building a viral look from second-hand clothes is both cheaper and more personal than buying a packaged costume that may be forgotten by November.

Halloween is mainly a Western festival, but its costume culture travels online. Many of the characters on Google's list come from global films, games and streaming shows that young audiences everywhere, including in India, watch at the same time. That makes these lists a useful snapshot of what is trending in global youth pop culture this autumn, even for readers who never put on a costume.

Short-term: Shops and online sellers that stock last-minute items for trending characters stand to gain in the final two days, while second-hand stores expect more people looking for clothing they can turn into costumes. Because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, parties and events are likely to be spread across the whole weekend.

Long-term: The spread between search trends and real buying suggests that viral characters are now driving discovery, while budget and reuse decide the final choice. That pattern favours mix-and-match clothing, reusable accessories and second-hand shopping over single-use costumes, which also means less waste after the festival.

Who is affected: Young people planning costumes or parties, parents choosing outfits for children, pet owners, costume retailers, thrift stores, and creators who post costume ideas on social media.

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