With Halloween two weeks away, Northwestern students clamored for costumes, masks and accessories at the Theatre and Interpretation Center’s annual Halloween Costume Sale on Tuesday.

TI produces, manages, funds and administers the performing arts productions of the School of Communication, the Department of Theatre and the Department of Performance Studies. TI’s Costume Shop is where most of these costumes are made, stored and sold to students.

All costumes featured in the sale came from previous productions performed at TI. Last year’s shows included “Spring Awakening,” “Rent,” “The Little Prince” and “Twelfth Night.”

“We get a lot of costumes in every year,” said Megan Keach, a costume stitcher at the shop. “Every time we do shows, we’re buying new stuff and we have to make room on the racks for the new stuff. So we get rid of the stuff we’re not going to use.”

In addition to creating space for new costumes, the sale adds to the costume shop’s coffers.

“We use it to supplement our supplies budget, basically anything the costume shop needs,” Keach said. “It goes back into the supply fund — it helps fund future shows, it helps keep the shop running nice and smooth. It helps life be happy here at Northwestern.”

Students such as Communication freshman Veronica Johnson entered and exited freely with costumes and masks in hand.

“It’s an amazing deal because these costumes are super-high quality and they’re super cheap, especially for college students,” Johnson said.

The shop puts a large amount of time and effort into each of the costumes and intentionally keeps prices low, Keach said.

“There are things on the $10 rack that took people two weeks to make,” she said. “We try to give people good deals.”

The business model appears to be working. Costumes that were on the racks at 10 a.m. were gone an hour and a half later, and even more had been bought by closing at 4 p.m.

“Sales are really good, particularly in the last couple of years,” Keach said.  “Word is spreading — we had people beating down the door this year.”

The Halloween Costume Sale continues from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday.