Walt Disney World opened ticket sales for the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party to all guests, and one of two nights at a new record-high price sold out on the first day of general public sales for the first time ever. This covers the latest, along with what you can expect with other dates selling out and commentary about how to reconcile this with WDW allegedly pricing out the middle class.
The big news is that Halloween night–October 31, 2025–became the first date of this year’s Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party to officially sell out. At present, it’s the only evening of the special event to reach capacity–but it certainly won’t be the last. (See our 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Guide for everything else you need to know about the event.)
The All Hallow’s Eve date of MNSSHP sold out sometime around midday on May 22, 2025. That’s less than one full day after general public sales began, which is the first time ever that any date has sold out on the day general public sales opened. On-site guests of Walt Disney World resorts and select third party hotels had an early-access window to purchase tickets one week earlier, starting May 15, 2025.
This comes as a modest surprise, but not a huge one. Last year, October 31 sold out on May 21–the earliest ever sell out! Technically, I guess that’s still true by one day, but the difference is that ticket sales started on May 8 for on-site guests and May 15 for the general public, so the window between the start and sell out was longer.
Even so, last year’s sell out happened so fast that we questioned whether it was initially an inventory or IT glitch, and awaited further confirmation before sharing the news. Even with the sell out occurring faster and at a higher price point, we didn’t question October 31 selling out of tickets for the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
When we first addressed Ticket Prices for the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Breaking the $200 Barrier, we predicted that October 31 would sell out in record time largely because it’s a Friday night in 2025:
It wouldn’t surprise me if, even at the $30 higher price point, this still sells out in record time and is unavailable before May is over. (Not so bold prediction: no other dates sell out until at least mid-July 2025.)
Honestly, Walt Disney World could’ve probably priced October 31, 2025 at $250 or $275 and still had no issues selling out. The bigger problem would’ve been perception via articles like this one, social media complaints, etc. (That’s arguably why Walt Disney World hasn’t been more aggressive with MNSSHP and MVMCP price increases, despite demand very clearly supporting higher ticket costs.)
At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Walt Disney World make Halloween night its own separate thing, charging $300 or whatever, but also making that event unique in some way so as to be excluded from the pricing chart. But that isn’t what’s happening this year, so it’s a bit beside the point.
October 31 selling out within hours of going on sale to the general public really makes me wonder whether Walt Disney World will make Halloween night its own event with separate branding. Forget $300 per person–they might be able to sell it out at $399. Add some special villains to the parade and rare characters, change the name of that one-night event, and “reduce” the price range of the remaining MNSSHP dates. Seems like a win-win.
The above prediction was written before the Disneyland 70th Anniversary kicked off last weekend. Obviously, that’s an unrelated event on the other coast, but its start nevertheless caught my attention for one reason: Disney fans and locals spending money with abandon.
There’s a bunch of new food & drinks, merchandise, interactive & novelty items for Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary. Prices for many of these things (if not most of them) are pretty eye-popping. And yet, souvenirs are flying off the shelves, there were long lines for every interactive portal, and Mobile Order time slots for the restaurants with the most popular dishes have filled up fast.
For the record, I’m not casting aspersions. While I rant about pricing here–and as we stood in line for a “Celebration Matterhorn Macaroon” costing $8.29, a dessert that used to cost under $2 not that long ago–we also did buy it. So we might be complaining about high prices, but we’re also voting with our wallets and are part of the problem. (Seriously though, is that simple coconut dessert now prepared with real gold flakes inside?!?)
Disney pricing out the middle class has been a hot topic of conversation on this blog, and it’s an important one that is absolutely happening. This much is evident in the aggressive discounting and marketing campaign aimed at young families over the summer. Those efforts aren’t happening for no reason; Disney doesn’t do deals out of generosity, it’s because they’re needed to fill the resorts and hotels.
It’s also fairly undeniable that there’s another subset of guests, and a not-insignificant one, that is doing just fine and spending more than ever. And it’s not as if these guests are richie-riches rolling up in their Bentleys and decked out head-to-toe in LV. I know you can’t judge a book by its cover (see The Millionaire Next Door), but the vast majority of these people look like regular ole guests.
There are undoubtedly some demographic differences. Many probably skew upper middle class as opposed to lower. Some are part of big multi-generational families, which makes them stand out much more, but also often means they have baby boomer grandparents who have done well over their lifetimes and are now treating the grandkids.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of Disney Adult DINKs. This is such a huge demographic on both coasts that it’s really deserving of more attention, and not just in a derogatory or superficial sense, because it is absolutely growing. We’ve touched on it a bit with the new bars being built, but the reality is that Disney Adult DINKs are the biggest growth engine for the parks, and we fully expect more decisions–not fewer–to be made with them in mind.
In other words, there’s a divide in Disney guests. Some are struggling just to get in the gate, while others are more free-spending than ever. In a significantly capacity-constrained scenario like the October 31 MNSSHP, Disney only needs the latter. But bigger picture and larger scale, the company needs both–to fill those tens of thousands of hotel rooms on a nightly basis and the significantly higher-capacity levels of all four parks (plus other stuff) every single day for 365 days per year.
Circling back to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, there’s also the growing likelihood that ticket sales to this (and other) hard ticket special events are completely divorced from crowd levels from August through October. This is another thing we’ve discussed at length elsewhere, specifically in our posts about Massive Magic Kingdom Mix-In Crowds.
The core thesis is that an increasing number of guests are purchasing Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween instead of other tickets, rather than in addition to them. Meaning that MNSSHP (and MVMCP) sell outs at ever-increasing prices are being driven in part by the aforementioned free-spending demographics on one end, but also frugal guests on the other.
On the frugal side of the ledger, this is likely playing out in a ways big and small, from tourists buying shorter duration tickets (3 days instead of 4) to locals skipping out on Annual Passes and getting their “Disney fix” during Party Season.
This might sound like far-fetched theories or grasping at straws to explain why daily crowd levels have been lower in the fall, but it’s based on a combination of firsthand experience and extensive feedback from readers and travel agents.
When Disneyland really started increasing prices on Annual Passes several years ago and reduced options for locals, many Californians started skipping APs and instead doing Mickey’s Halloween Party (now Oogie Boogie Bash). This skipped the popularity of these parties, which now sell out very quickly even on dates that aren’t particularly busy.
Priced-out locals wanting to get their Disney fix would also explain why MNSSHP and MVMCP are selling faster than ever, despite pent-up demand otherwise slowing. This would explain how sold out parties are happening in the face of falling crowds, which were the lowest last August through October that they’ve been since 2021. Low regular attendance and high demand for hard ticket events isn’t even contradictory–it makes perfect sense.
As for predictions about additional dates of the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party selling out, we’re not expecting anything in the immediate future. Last year, the next sell out after October 31 didn’t occur for nearly 2 full months–on July 19, which is when the second night of the event in August sold out (it was significantly cheaper than night 1, just as it is in 2025).
After that, 3 more August dates sold out in July–the first 4 nights were gone by July 31, 2024. All of the cheapest party dates were among the first to sell out, which isn’t a huge surprise since those are also the events that occur earliest. If anything, the last 2 dates in August underperformed, only selling out ~2 weeks in advance of those dates.
Arguably the worst-performing dates were the parties that were the weekend before Halloween, including the only non-school night, all of which were priced at $199 and none of which sold out until late September. In fairness, these sold out further in advance than the late August and early September dates, but they were also the last to sell out–meaning that procrastinating locals with a lack of choices would’ve had the option of these dates or nothing.
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see whether all dates of the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party sell out again, as has been the case in each of the last few years since the event returned. While we would like to see fewer sold out dates to force Walt Disney World to reevaluate the entertainment slate or pump the brakes on pricing, that’s probably wishful thinking.
The reality is that Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is more popular than ever. As with Lightning Lanes, some guests are making sacrifices elsewhere in their vacation (or other) budgets to splurge on MNSSHP and other more free-spending guests don’t need to cut any corners. This is a recipe for yet another fully sold out year of MNSSHP.
The best we can realistically hope for is probably that tickets sell out slower than last year. I’d be ecstatic to be wrong, and have multiple nights not sell out at all. Obviously, that would be good for guests, but also for the long-term health of the event, as it’s gotten quite stale and Walt Disney World has no incentive to do anything about that. October 31 selling out within hours is seemingly a sign that nothing is going to change, but it could be a one-off due to Halloween happening on a Friday. We’re not holding our breath. Although sticker shock is common with all things Walt Disney World, this shouldn’t be surprising.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you bought tickets to the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party? Would you prefer to visit in August when the tradeoff is triple-digit feels like temperatures for ~$100 less expensive MNSSHP tickets? Or will your family be sitting this Halloween event out? Think MNSSHP is getting stale? What are your thoughts on ticket prices, demand, crowd levels, or the likelihood of the 2025 MNSSHP selling out to the same extent as last year? Do you agree or disagree with our perspective on this? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!