Most costume stores pack up their Halloween garb and shut their doors as soon as the calendar flips to November, but for Spotlight Costumes on East Carson Street in the South Side of Pittsburgh, it ia not even considered their busy season.Walking into the store, customers might experience a bit of sensory overload. The walls are covered entirely from the floor to the at least 15-foot high ceiling in masks, wigs, makeup, costumes, jewelry, props and other novelties, like an extremely practical “moustache party pack,” complete with a dozen differently shaped and multicolored adhesive moustaches.The front half of the building is made up of three aisles dedicated to retail. If that part seems crowded, the back half, with the rental costumes, barely allows people the room to walk without an array of colorful fabrics brushing against their shoulders. Not a single person that walked in the store was left unattended. Each customer was personally offered assistance in finding what he or she was looking for, and if it was not in stock, which was rare, suggestions were offered along with a genuine, “Don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything else.”Also, the associates weren’t the only ones with personality. The store itself showed some quirky characteristics of its own that are sure to amuse customers.  A “Shoplifters will be executed” sign greets guests from the front window, a wooden display hand sits on a shelf behind the counter, inconspicuously arranged with the middle finger up, and one mirror wears a sticker that reads, “Stop staring! You’re going to break me!”Ron Thompson, director of visual merchandising, has been working at Spotlight Costumes for 23 years, since it’s opening in 1988. All of the hand-written signage in the store is his “handiwork,” and he is in charge of the window display, which was flaunting an outlandish 1980s rock theme, and the displays of retail merchandise. According to Thompson, there is a “certain flow” to the myriad of costumes.”It starts with Renaissance and Medieval and goes to pirates, which is also Colonial,” Thompson said. “Then you have ‘Star Wars,’ the 1950s, ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Then, we’ve got your Goth, with ghouls, witches and goblins, which are right next to fairies and mystical creatures. Then we go into storybook characters and into things like Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompas and superheroes … including a 250-dollar full suit of armor for an Iron Man costume.”   One could probably spend an eternity in this store and still not be able to see every single thing, and “they probably wouldn’t find your corpse when you went missing,” Thompson joked.Halloween makes for a lot of foot traffic, but their actual “busy season” occurs when theater programs schedule performances.It’s spring through summer and then November and December when a lot of shows are running,” Thompson said. “Halloween is actually a very small percentage of our annual income.”Spotlight Costumes has produced costumes for many stages, televisions, films and videos in major cities throughout the United States and Europe. A few of their many well-known clients include Disney Theatricals, Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera, H.J. Heinz Corporation, Kennywood Park, Pepsi Cola Corporation and actor Bruce Willis.”We really take pride in our shows and our costumes,” said Lindsay “Ginger” Dickison, primary makeup artist at Spotlight Costumes. “For each actor that comes in here, we alter every piece to fit them, and that’s something that most others don’t offer. Most of the rentals are made here in the store by two seamstresses, and the owner, Kim Brown, designs them.”This is Dickison’s third year working at Spotlight Costumes. With a degree in special effects from the Tom Savini School of Special Effects, she works mostly with the theatre aspect of the store, advising people in projects, doing tutorials and, of course, working on makeup for performances.Also, Spotlight Costumes is the tri-states’ largest dealer of Ben Nye professional make-up. Sophomore musical theater majors Nicole Soriano and Jaclyn McSpadden are a few amongst the many Point Park University students who rely on this store for kits for their stage makeup classes. The students’ latest assignment was to recreate a classic Halloween character, like a zombie, vampire or a witch, McSpadden said. She chose to make herself over into the “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” complete with tentacles and gills.”I love this shop,” McSpadden said. “They have basically everything that you could possibly need, either for class or just Halloween in general.”