Goodwill Haunted Runway Costume Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Goodwill Haunted Runway Costume Contest and who runs it?

Goodwill Thrift Studio presents The Haunted Runway as a DIY Halloween costume contest for Chicagoland, and the ballot frames the whole exercise in three moves: ENTER. RALLY YOUR PEOPLE. MAKE THE TOP 5. An entrant submits a homemade Halloween look, solo or with a crew of up to 3, then rallies friends, family and biggest fans to vote for it. The page dangles a $250 prize from Goodwill and sends the five entries with the most votes down The Haunted Runway at the Arts in the Dark Parade in downtown Chicago on October 24. The tagline "Your runway awaits." sets the tone.

Voting sits on Woobox at https://woobox.com/sj9ndn, a hosted ballot page titled The Haunted Runway | Goodwill Thrift Studio. The program also reaches a theatre-minded crowd through a Buzznews listings page that files the ballot under its Chicago theatre tag, which suits an event built around spectacle rather than a straight business ranking. Among the Illinois public votes covered on this site, that makes the ballot an outlier: the competitors are costumes, the contestants themselves do the campaigning, and the finale is a street parade instead of an awards list. The ballot prints no entry count and no running total for the field, so nobody reading it can size the competition.

When does the Haunted Runway ballot open and close?

The 2026 cycle runs entry and voting inside a single window. The ballot banner announces Enter The Haunted Runway from September 14 to OCT. 5, 2026, and a second banner near the entry grid states VOTING CLOSES OCT. 5. No separate nomination round is printed on the page: a look goes up and starts collecting votes at the same time.

Editions of the program ran in 2024, 2025 and 2026, three consecutive autumns, which marks The Haunted Runway as an annual fixture on the Chicagoland Halloween calendar. Nothing earlier than 2024 appears on the ballot, and no opening day inside September is printed beyond the 14th.

Several details stay off the page entirely. The ballot posts no category roster dividing looks into divisions. Round-by-round dates, if the platform stages any, are likewise absent. And no per-supporter vote limit or eligibility text appears beside the entries; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How do you vote for a look on the Haunted Runway ballot?

Supporting a costume takes three steps. Open https://woobox.com/sj9ndn in any browser, scroll the grid of DIY looks, and tap the Vote for this look button on the entry you back. Every tile carries a Costume Details link, the vote button and a running Votes counter, and a Load More control extends the grid once you reach the bottom of the first batch. The click registers straight away, and the counter is the only confirmation the page gives.

The ballot prompts no login before the button and charges nothing at any point, though it spells out no account policy either, so a supporter who hits an unexpected wall should rely on the terms link rather than guess. Campaigning advice on the page is blunt: text your bestie, whatever it takes, and get your people to vote by October 5 for a chance to make the top 5. With only five runway spots available, the difference between advancing and going home comes down to whoever mobilises more supporters inside a three-week window. That is why entrants treat the vote button less like a casual poll and more like a fundraiser thermometer, checking the counter on their own tile as the close approaches.

Where does the Haunted Runway fit among Illinois public-vote ballots?

Six other Illinois programs share this site's coverage, and each works a different lane. The Best of Chicago run by the Chicago Reader ranks businesses across a huge citywide field, while Sauk Valley Favorites serves Sterling and the surrounding valley. Downstate, CommunityVotes runs parallel editions for Peoria and Rockford, and two niche ballots round out the set: the People's Choice vote that BAGI attaches to its Parade of Homes, aimed at builders, and Chicago Style Weddings Best Of for the wedding trade.

The Haunted Runway differs from every one of them in shape. Its competitors are individual costumes rather than establishments, entry is open to anyone with a DIY look, and the payoff is a parade appearance instead of a plaque or a magazine feature. Its season is tight, a few autumn weeks, where best-of ballots collect responses across much of the year. Its home is downtown Chicago, which puts it closer in geography to the Reader's citywide poll than to the downstate editions, yet furthest from all of them in format. For someone choosing which Illinois ballot deserves their campaigning energy, the practical difference is simple: this ballot rewards rallying a personal network against a hard October deadline, not spreading choices across many categories over months.

How can an entrant strengthen support before October 5?

The ballot hands entrants their own playbook: rally friends, family and community, and do it before the close. A crew of up to 3 triples the starting network, since each member campaigns to a different circle. Sharing the look's direct link removes a search step for every supporter. Because only the five most voted entries advance, late momentum matters more than an early lead, and the counter on each tile shows exactly where a look stands.

Beyond that, the contest terms linked from the ballot govern what outside help is permitted, and they are the authority to check before any spend. Readers weighing paid promotion for an entry-based ballot can compare what the award votes page covers, and the get-more-votes guide collects organic tactics that suit hard-deadline contests like this one.