Maskers came in droves Saturday afternoon to the Outlets at Vicksburg to get a head start on their trick-or-treating during the outlet mall’s Halloween event.

The parade of costumes ranged from the traditional witches, ghosts and goblins, to super heroes, dinosaurs and Star Wars characters, including Yoda, storm troopers and various Sith lords.

“This is our first time out here for this,” said Mark Wahl, who with his wife, Lou, was accompanying their children to the different stores. “We’ve just moved here. This is nice, and it’s safer than dealing with traffic in the neighborhood.”

“I love this,” said Andrea Scott, who brought her son, Jadyn Wells, 3, to collect goodies. “We just moved back here from Hattiesburg, so this is our first time here. This is nice, and it’s safe, and it gives him a chance to get out and do something.”

To get their treats, trick-or-treaters walked a route beginning at either end of the mall and went to the other end, stopping at the different stores for treats. At times the traffic became heavy at some locations causing a costumed gridlock as parents and children tried to negotiate the sidewalks.

“It’s been crazy,” said Katie Schroeder, who like co-worker Allyson Sykes was dressed as a cow as she passed out candy by The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and Billy’s. “We’ve seen every kind of costume.”

“We’ve been getting a lot of kids,” Carter’s employee Brittney Godwin said about 5:30 p.m.

She looked at the dwindling supply of candy in a large plastic storage box. “We had a lot of candy. We bought 26 bags, and now we’re just about out.”

Claire’s employee Tonya Anderson, dressed as a witch, took time out from her job to take her sons Tameron and London through the route. She said it was interesting working both sides.

“This has been exciting,” said mall office employee Katie Rayborn. “We’ve had a great turnout.