Inside HalloweenCostumes.com in Mankato

My teens and I recently had the special opportunity to tour the HalloweenCostumes.com headquarters in Mankato, Minnesota during a one-day event when they opened their doors to visitors for free. 

This tour was a pretty incredible peek behind the scenes of the company that makes and sells thousands of costumes, decorations, and animatronics. And let me tell you — this place is SO much fun!

From costumes for just about every character and theme you can imagine to massive, incredibly detailed animatronics, there was something interesting around every corner.

We started with a tour led by the CEO Tom Fallenstein. He and other team members guided us through the large office building where there were displays of costumes and animatronics everywhere.

So Many Costumes!

Walking through the headquarters felt like stepping into the ultimate Halloween warehouse.

There are costumes for just about every character, theme, and interest you can imagine. For the tour, I even was given one costume of my choice – as a Star Wars fan, of course I chose a woman’s Jedi costume, which is available for $79.99.

And that was just one tiny glimpse of everything they have!

They had costumes from every movie or storybook you can think of – Disney princesses, Pirates of the Caribbean, Iron Man, Dr. Seuss, creepy horror movie characters, and so many more.

My teens had a blast checking everything out, and it was especially fun getting to see the costumes and products in person rather than just browsing them online.\

All in all, they have 15,000 different costume choices!

So Many Animatronics!

The building was also filled with cool animatronics – I’ve seen some in Halloween stores but this was the ultimate collection! They really do make them all.

I had to sneak into this one for a photo…

We saw Poppy Playtime (Huggy Wuggy and CatNap), Army of Darkness (Ash Williams), Edward Scissorhands, Harley Quinn and Poltergeist. And yes, many are probably too creepy for little kids to see – but fascinating and realistic!

There was a room with larger animatronics too, like Stay Puft from Ghostbusters, and Slender Man.

The Warehouse

Our tour group took shuttle busses to the warehouse building, which was nearby. It had thousands of well-organized costumes and animatronics, ready to ship.

And Then There Was the $25,000 Balrog!

One of the most jaw-dropping things we saw was a $25,000 Balrog animatronic from The Lord of the Rings.

Yes, $25,000!

This isn’t just a giant decoration sitting there looking impressive. The Balrog moves, lights up, and is incredibly elaborate.

Would I personally spend $25,000 on a Halloween decoration? Probably not — that’s a little outside my frugal-mom budget! 😂

But seeing it in person was SO cool. It really showed just how elaborate some of the animatronics and Halloween creations can be.

A Really Fun Behind-the-Scenes Experience

I’m so glad we got the chance to experience this special event with my teens. Getting a behind-the-scenes look at a Minnesota company that specializes in Halloween was definitely something different — and something we’ll remember!

Note: The HalloweenCostumes.com headquarters isn’t open for public tours. This was a special one-day event, so I wanted to share our experience without giving anyone the impression that tours are regularly available.

If you’re shopping for Halloween costumes or decorations, you can still check out everything HalloweenCostumes.com has to offer.

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More pictures

Check out more pics in my photo gallery here.

(Disclosure: We were invited to tour as influencers, and this is the recap of that tour. All opinions are 100% mine.)