Skeletons and a pirate ship: How Conway transforms into Halloween. Where does it all go?

In a warehouse in downtown Conway, a giant grim reaper statue is laying on his back, holding a shovel in one hand and a skeleton in the other. Next to him is a Frankenstein and pile of skeletons.

The whir of a drill is heard intermittently as different spooky items are being put together, including more skeletons and a floating octopus. The scent of paint floats in the air as a city employee decorates spooky signs to hang around town.

The city transforms itself into the City of Halloween every October. The transformation leaves the city looking like Tim Burton helped decorate, with orange pumpkins hanging from the trees, lights and giant skeletons climbing up the city’s water tower.

There are new and bigger decorations this year, including a surprise in the city’s marina.

Conway is preparing to be fully setup with its Halloween decorations by Oct. 1.

It’s a lot, and at the end of each season, the warehouse is the place where all the spookiness is tucked away until it’s time to decorate again.

City spokesperson June Wood said they didn’t always go all out for Halloween season. Originally Conway wanted to get attention for its Christmas displays but realized it might not be feasible.

“It’s so hard to get national attention for Christmas because everybody does it. And so we were like, how can we pivot from that and go into something new?” Wood said while giving a tour of the city’s Halloween workshop. “And so we started thinking about Halloween.”

Welcome to Halloween, South Carolina

The warehouse is not as packed as one might think as there needs to be space to set up. It also helps that decorations are stored in organized shipping containers.

Halloween decorations are scattered around on the wood floor. There’s a row of skeletons standing next to a statue of a haunted child. A city employee holds the bony limbs of a skeleton as he slowly pieces them together.

Shelves filled with storage boxes sit in the corner. It’s hard to see the contents of all of them, but a few Christmas bulbs can be seen — a reminder of the short time frame Conway has to tear down Halloween and get ready for Christmas.

Outside, around a dozen 10-foot-tall skeletons stand in Halloween jail. Blockades have been setup around the decorations to keep people away with a pile of sticks as tall as a person nearby. Wood said the skeletons would create the “Tunnel of Bones” complete with a stick arch at the entrance.

The skeletons were set up a month early because it takes time for all the pieces to be re-assembled. Set-up will begin the week of Sept. 9 and go until the inaugural event on Oct. 1.

Conway is trying to lean harder into Halloween planning. There will be more displays this year and events everyday of October, which will hopefully draw more people into downtown Conway and subsequently patronize businesses.

Wood was unsure of the total budget for Halloween decorations but said it’s all paid for with hospitality tax money.

The decorations started as putting pumpkins in the trees around the late 2010s and has continued to evolve. In 2023, Wood said the city decided to put up displays that people can walk around and see whenever they like. The success of it surprised Wood.

“Sundays are typically a little bit slower. We’re still a small southern town, and people go to church and it’s family time and what we noticed last year was that the streets of Conway were shoulder-to-shoulder on Sunday afternoons,” Wood said.

An involvement of all city staff

In order to lighten the workload for everyone, Wood said all city departments work together. Staff are also able to showcase talents they usually don’t use daily.

For example, one of the new exhibits, a pirate ship floating in the marina, was built by construction services employee Darrell McDowell. It’s one of the new displays for Halloween 2024.

McDowell said the roughly 16-foot-long boat had been rotting in the woods for awhile he decided to do something with it. He rebuilt the bottom and then constructed the sides and top.

“It’d been there for probably 20 some years. We went and thought we were able to pull it out, but we had to build some framing and stuff in it because everything was gone,” McDowell said.

The ship has masts, a watchtower, cannons and pirate skeletons in charge. People won’t be able to ride it, but a great scene was built around the ship. Mermaid skeletons sit just outside the water and there are plans for a giant sea creature to float near the boat.

On Sept. 5, McDowell was building the octopus, adding floats to the board that will hold up the tentacles and head.

When asked if the city has to send out a survey to find everyone with special skills, Wood said, “no, we all know,” Wood said. “You just start to see like people naturally attract and they just don’t leave.”

City workers also team together to find decorations for the season. Some items, like the collection of skeletons sitting on the floor, had Spirit Halloween tags clearly denoting where they were from. But with other items, like the chicken skeletons painted teal and gold to represent Coastal Carolina University, people were more creative.

Wood said employees from various city departments spend their free time hunting down Halloween decorations, whether it be online or in stores.

“You don’t realize the talents your staff have and how incredibly talented they are,” Wood. “It’s been really cool just to see people being able to use their like passion and their hobbies at work.”