10 Incredible Halloween Costume Contest Prize Ideas

Having a spectacular costume party in October? Here are 10 incredible halloween costume contest prize ideas for your Halloween party!

Halloween is upon us and you know what that means – it’s time to pick your costume! But what’s a costume without a good costume contest? Nothing says “Happy Halloween” more than a halloween contests, some halloween games, and a way to win prizes.

Maybe you’re throwing a Halloween party at your place. Or maybe you’re on the social committee at work and want to have a costume content for social media.

Or maybe you and your friends are just having a fun competition of who has the best costume amongst yourselves compete with a polaroid photo contest. Whatever the reason is that you are having a costume contest, you’re going to need some prizes!

You obviously want your Halloween costume contest to be the GOAT of Halloween costume contests. That means you need a GOAT prize to give out – something that everyone wants and could actually use.

Especially if you plan on making this Halloween costume contest an annual thing, you want to make sure the prize is so good, they still remember it next year and put even more effort into their costume in order to win the prize.

When it comes to contests for halloween costumes, or even just a costume party, it is a good idea to have a specific theme or prizes different categories. Maybe you have a prize for scariest costume, or group costume, crowd-favorite costume, cutest costume, most creative costume, etc.

So what should the Halloween prize be? Well, as much as cash prizes are great, the best costume awards should be Halloween themed of course! To help you out, here are some great Halloween costume contest prize ideas.

10 Halloween Costume Contest Prize Ideas

Halloween Wine

Let’s be honest – people love getting free wine. It’s a go-to gift for a reason! Which is why it should be a go-to grand prize option.

But for a Halloween costume contest, you are going to want to choosy a Halloween wine. Don’t think there’s any? There’s plenty!

A quick Google search brings up a wine called “Witches Brew” and a wine called “Halloween Black Cat Sweet Red Sparkling Wine. Wine.com has an entire section with 30 options! It includes a BloodRoot Pinot Noir and a Spellbound Cabernet Sauvignon.

Pumpkin Beer

October is synonymous with pumpkin beer, isn’t it? Even if you don’t drink beer regularly, there’s just something about pumpkin beer, especially with a cinnamon rim, that draws you in. Mix and match some popular favorites like Shipyard and Pumpkin Head.

You can also just buy cases of one and stick a bow on it to use it as the perfect prize. Plus, it tastes good even after October 31st! This is also a great prize idea for a pumpkin carving contest.

Gift Cards

You can never go wrong with gift cards, can you? Well, you can, if it’s to a very specific place that not everyone is a fan of. But doing gift Visa, American Express, or Mastercard gift cards is a safe bet. Amazon and Target gift cards are also a popular choice, too.

Most gift cards have seasonal cards, meaning you can likely find ones that are Halloween themed designs. You can either do one “large” prized cards or a bunch of different gift cards at lower price points – the choice is yours! Wrap it up in some Halloween themed wrapping. If you want to be really funny, get them a gift card to a Spirit Halloween so they can use it for their costume next year!

Skeleton Trophies

If you really want some sort of trophy or ribbon to give the prize winner, have it be a seasonal one! You can find lots of Halloween trophies online, but if you’re a DIY, The Little Black ShadeTree shared a video a few years back on how to make inexpensive and easy Halloween Skeleton Trophies yourself.

If a trophy seems too big for your liking, get a Halloween themed winner ribbon or printable costume awards. For an easy and low cost alternative, if you have extra orange or black ribbon at home, use that, and write “Winner” on it in the opposite color.

Sweet And Scary Desserts

If you love to bake, use that to your advantage here! Most people love a good homemade treat, making it a great choice for a prize. Pumpkin bread is a great choice for obvious reasons.

You can also bake chocolate cupcakes and find orange frosting. Or make brownies and top them with orange sprinkles. There’s tons of options you can bake here.

Serve it on a Halloween themed platter, wrapped in clear, so prize winners can see the treats. These also make great party favors or mini-prizes if you’re doing more than one costume competition.

Tons of Halloween Candy

Halloween and candy go together like peanut butter and jelly! Put together an assortment of candy and use that as a prize. Have fun with this and use some trick-or-treating baskets or another Halloween type of bag to put the candy in.

Plus, most candy out during Halloween time has special Halloween themed packaging to make this prize look even cooler. Another great option for halloween favors, too!

Scary books

Are you and your friends bookworms? Put together an assortment of scary books, like a bunch of Stephen King novels to give away as prizes! If you’re not sure which books to choose, “Good Housekeeping” has a list of the 30 scariest horror books ever written.

You can also do this with scary movies for the silver screen lovers! It can even be a part of the halloween competition – for those with a movie-inspired costume!

A Halloween Tumbler

We all walk around with our water bottles nowadays, making this a great prize idea. You can never really have enough water bottles, right? And you definitely need one for each season!

There’s tons of Halloween themed tumblers out there. Starbucks comes out with fall themed and Halloween themed tumblers this year. We don’t know just yet what the falls ones will be, but they did drop their Disney ones, which is a Mickey Jack-o’-Lantern Halloween Starbucks Tumbler.

Theme baskets

If your costume contest had a theme, lean into that! For instance, if everyone had to dress as their favorite Disney character, have the prizes for the contest be Disney bags filled with Disney merch!

Or if the theme was for everyone to come as characters from their favorite movie, have the prizes be plastic buckets of popcorn filled with microwavable popcorn, candy, and gift cards to your local movie theater. You’ve already got super creative with the theme, get even more creative when figuring out a matching prize for the costume contest winner!

Tickets to a haunted house

Chances are, there’s some sort of Halloween attraction in your neighborhood. This is an easy way to support local events, too. It could be a haunted house, a monster’s museum, a murder mystery, a jack-o-lantern exhibit, or a spooky hayride.

Whatever the “hot” Halloween attraction is in your area, get tickets to it as use it as prizes. It’s a great way to keep the Halloween spirit going! Just make sure that if your contest is on Halloween or close to it, the attraction you’re buying tickets for stays open past Halloween!

Hopefully these Halloween costume contest prize ideas inspired you!

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays and it’s hard to go wrong with any of these prizes!

About the Author

Michelle graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelors of Arts ’13 and a Master of Arts ’14. She’s currently working in corporate America with a side of freelance writing. She wants you to learn from her experiences and mistakes so your 20s can be your best decade. When she’s not working, she’s likely planning her escape to a tropical island.