Salem Braces For Challenges, Cheers Benefits Of Massive Witch City Halloween Tourist Invasion

SALEM, MA — The collective sense of quiet anticipation of the storm that awaits Salem over the next month was evident in the downtown shops and restaurants that welcomed a relatively modest stream of costumed tourists on a brilliantly sunny eve of the Halloween inundation this week.

The excitement was there for those who decided a weekday late in September was a better way to get in the holiday spirit in Halloween's unofficial hometown than battling hundreds of thousands of spook enthusiasts during one of the final weekends of the month —or the big day itself, which happens to hit on a Friday this year.

The impending invasion was a hot topic among customers and staff at the local businesses. But the prevailing sentiment was not the dread it might have been in the years during and coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic — when crowds seemed to grow exponentially each scary season — but more of an understanding of what's to come in the next four weeks, and that the city, the majority of its residents and the service industry staffs that have seen this sort of thing before are ready for what's about to come their way.

"It certainly can be a frustrating time for residents to get the kids to school or get to the grocery store," Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo told Patch. "I know it from living here, so there is no way to suggest that it's not a challenging time for those of us who are trying to live our daily lives.

"But the benefit every year is that we are welcoming visitors from around the world to learn about the city and to share our stories. We who live here love Salem, and we are fortunate to call the city our home. There are also the shops and restaurants that thrive because of this, which you wouldn't see in other communities the size of Salem.

"It's because of the visitor economy that we get to enjoy those all year round."

• Safety Stressed As 1.15+ Million Witch City Halloween Season Visitors Expected

After a few years of mounting Halloween season angst, and even one or two when officials either begged the crowds to stay away or implored them to wear masks indoors, the tourist influx that has topped one million visitors in a month for the past two years — and almost certainly will this year, starting with this weekend of summer-like weather — there appears a growing acceptance that it is something the city must find a way to embrace because, ultimately, it does not have a choice.

"Salem is a city," Pangallo said. "It's an active and vibrant place with people always coming and going. There are always tourists or visitors coming into the city for one reason or another to get downtown, or to Salem State, or to the courts or the hospital. It's not a gated city, and Halloween is not a gated event. It's not a single-ticket event. It's hundreds of organized events over the course of the month, where people are doing a thousand other things here as well.

"We can't just put a wall up at the city border and say Salem is closed. Nor would we want to do that. We want people coming here to listen to our stories, hear about our history, and hopefully learn from it."

To do that with as much success, and as little disruption, as possible, the city, a few years ago, launched an active campaign to urge tourists to take public transportation with increased commuter rail service, larger-capacity ferries, and the use of satellite lots on the outskirts of Salem with shuttle service provided to downtown.

Salem Ferry service will add an additional 600-passenger ferry for the last two weekends of the month to go along with the regular 150-person passenger service.

Seven additional inbound trains and eight additional outbound trains on Saturdays and Sundays throughout October. There will also be train service every 30 minutes to and from Boston on Halloween itself.

The commuter rail unlimited $10 weekend passes will be viable each weekend and will be sold on Halloween as well. No bicycles or scooters will be allowed on Commuter Rail trains during weekends in October because of the expected crowds.

"We have seen an improvement in the challenges we faced with traffic and parking several years ago," Pangallo said. "The message we repeat every year is that public transportation is the best way to get to Salem, both for the people here in the community and for the visitors. The less time you are driving around trying to find a parking space, the more time you are walking around enjoying Salem."

Another even more ominous challenge that seems increasingly stark each year is the threat of violence — with the New Year's Eve deadly attack in New Orleans, and even the more recent Oktoberfest bomb threats in Germany, making safety what Pangallo called this month "first and foremost a public safety operation for us."

To that end, pedestrian barriers were set up along the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade route on Thursday, with hard barriers, such as DPW trucks and other "anti-vehicle barricades," set up in front of closed streets and heavy tourist pedestrian areas through the holiday.

"Those take a little more time to put in place," Pangallo said, "but they provide a more hardened barrier.

"Our first responsibility is going to be to ensure we can welcome these large crowds and welcome everyone safely."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)