Spirit Halloween’s ability to appear and disappear every fall has inspired countless memes online and even a recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch. But the company’s strategy to staff more than 1,500 stores and hire approximately 50,000 seasonal workers across North America is no easy task.

“We are only physically there for three months. A tremendous amount of planning, preparation and background work goes into the other nine months,” said Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spirit Halloween.

A key part of the strategy is convincing landlords to agree to short-term leases. The model has proven to be lucrative for specialist retailers.

Spirit Halloween was acquired by longtime mall retailer Spencer’s in 1999. By 2015, Spirit Halloween had grossed around $400 million, according to Moody’s Ratings. The company estimates that the combined companies, known as Spencer Spirit Holdings, brought in $1.86 billion in 2023. Michael Tellis, vice president of corporate finance at Moody’s, said Spirit Halloween accounts for a larger share of the company’s sales than Spencer’s.

“The number of their branches has also increased. But…it’s not a big number. They were really able to drive more traffic to the store,” Tellis said.

Permanent retailers generally don’t want to miss the holiday season, and since they need more time to set up a shop than a pop-up shop, they won’t close deals when summer is around the corner. Those are the cases the company likes to capitalize on, Silverstein said.

Larry Link, president of New York real estate firm Level Group, said a New York pop-up store typically pays a 20% to 30% premium to use a space on a short-term contract. Rent arrears and property damage are two of the main concerns for landlords renting to a temporary retailer, but he said Spirit Halloween is a special case.

“Because of their track record, they have essentially eliminated all of the risks of a standard pop-up, so I’m sure they are using that fact to make an aggressive deal with landlords sitting on empty spaces,” Link said.

Commercial real estate lease prices vary in New York City, but the asking price for Spirit Halloween’s Chelsea location in southwest Manhattan is $100 per square foot for the 21,300 square foot ground floor for a permanent tenant. The space also features an additional 13,600 square feet lower level at a more affordable price. It’s unclear how much Spirit is paying Halloween for his short-term contract.

In rural areas it is significantly lower. CNBC looked at a lease for Spirit Halloween in Redding, California. According to the listing, rent for this space is typically around $27,000 per month. The proposal would see Spirit offer $30,000 in April for a four-and-a-half-month contract.

“We don’t think about rent per square foot,” Silverstein said. “We have a lot of experience in predicting the revenue we will generate and that will translate into the rent, which is valuable to us.”

According to an analysis by the University of Virginia School of Data Science, the five largest previous tenants of the storefronts the company currently occupies were Rite Aid, Tuesday Morning, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears and CVS. All of these retailers, with the exception of CVS, have filed for bankruptcy at some point.

Earlier this month, the company announced the launch of a test concept with 10 Spirit holiday stores. Eight of these stores will be located at existing Spirit Halloween locations.

Silverstein said the company is in the midst of planning the 2025 season and is even “designing” its business for 2026.

“You have to put those seeds in the ground and they will certainly be influenced by what comes out of our Halloween experience this year,” Silverstein said.

Watch the video to learn more about Spirit Halloween’s business.

— CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge contributed to this story