I've done okay, but not so much lately. In the past all it took was a competent zombie makeup and a well-grunged suit from Goodwill. I think my prop (a head made from a cheap Halloween mask draped over a wig block with lights in the ping pong ball eyes and a laughing bag for a voice, all contained inside a minature coffin) helped. A nice, simple ghost outfit (old curtain sheers draped over Victorian clothing, gray makeup, and handheld battery-powered candlesticks) did well.

But now it's either the revealing girlie costumes or guys who go all out who do best. I have no place to store a ten-foot Frankenstein getup, so if we go to public Halloween parties anymore I do my best to present a convincing character but not to impress the competition judges.

Sometimes that works, though. Back in the '90s my sister and I did nice Andorian outfits at a Star Trek convention in Atlanta, GA. You'd have thought Gene Roddenberry himself had walked in from the reaction we got. There were more spectacular Next Gen outfits there, but ours weren't store bought. I think it helped that we were Original Series charcters, too.

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Mark McG.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.