Halloween is associated with a wide range of things including candy, costumes, monsters, pumpkins and scary movies.

Last Halloween, we profiled pumpkin production in Alberta (see below for a photo of a pumpkin grown by ATB team member Brandon Stutheit that took home the prize for the third largest gourd grown in Alberta).

While not all of the movies and TV shows shot in Alberta feature ghosts, zombies, evil forces or other similarly spooky stuff, some of them do (Ghostbusters: Afterlife is one example), so we thought Alberta’s film and TV production industry would make a good topic for this year’s Halloween edition of the Twenty-Four.

Here are a few key stats from IBISWorld Inc.* that provide some sense of the size and growth of Alberta’s movie, TV and video production industry:

• The industry generated $685 million in revenue last year.
• Annual inflation-adjusted industry revenue was 48% higher in 2023 compared to five years earlier.
• Annual inflation-adjusted revenue is forecast by IBISWorld to increase by 9% between 2023 and 2028.

As such, it is safe to say that Alberta has a growing movie, TV and video production industry.

Most of the businesses in the sector are found in Calgary (57% of the total) and Edmonton (35%), but production takes place in many parts of the province. Ghostbusters: Afterlife, for example, shot scenes in Drumheller, Fort MacLeod, and Crossfield.

In addition to the businesses operating in the sector, there are also many film-and-TV-related festivals, events, associations, tourist attractions, and educational programs in the province that generate economic activity and enrich our culture.

So if you are curling up on the couch to watch The Last of Us or one of the other scary TV shows or movies filmed in Alberta this Halloween, be comforted by the fact that the movie and TV industry is a vibrant part of Alberta’s economy.

Happy Halloween!

*You can find information on the sources used by IBISWord here.

Answer to the previous trivia question: The first U.S. presidential election was held in 1789.

Today’s trivia question: George Washington was the first President of the United States, but who was the first Vice-President?