A growing number of areas are considering changing the date of Halloween to the last Saturday of the month.
For example: Indtead of doing the Halloween stuff (Trick-or-treating, Parties, etc) on Wednesday the 31 this year, it would fall on Saturday the 27th.
Personally I'm all for it. Reasons:
It's not on a school - This means that you are not keeping kids up later than they ought to and are not getting them over-excited on a school night.
It's not on a work night - With places running Trick-or-treat hours, many of these places run these hours from 5-7. Which if you are a parent that works until 5pm and don't get home in time, you either miss out on the fun of handing out the candy or the fun of taking your child out trick-or-treating.
Safer - Since places are doing this from 5-7, on a work night these are rush hour times. That and if you as a parent are home, you can escort the children yourself instead of trusting to luck or the potentially easily distracted older children.
You can do more fun things for children - A popular thing when Halloween is on a Friday or a Saturday night is to have lock-in parties for kids/teenagers. You drop them off at a safe and supervised location, they get locked in where they stay up as late as they want/can and you pick them up in the morning and they can sleep it off.
But as I stated, you can only do that two times in what seems to be a seven-year period.
We adults can have more fun - By letting the kids stay at lock-ins, or staying at a friend's house for an overnight, or by paying a babysitter then we adults can slip out and enjoy a night of fun as well.
There is no impact on those who celebrate Halloween as a religious holiday - Most of the "fun" things about Halloween is the non-religious activities. Most people aren't even aware the significance of the holiday and to them it's a bunch of kids celebrating a Halmark sponsered "Shake down the neighborhood for swag" night.
Those who do celebrate Samhain or All Hallows Eve would not be effected by this and in fact (with the exception of those times when the calendar falls on the Saturday) may even allow those folks to enjoy both the Sabbat and the "fun"
So...thoughts?