Playbook: Zombie Crawl Turns 6

Zombie Crawl
Saturday, October 24
3pm-2:30am

3pm: Zombie Fun Run (family-friendly) 2.5K

5pm: The March of the Death (aka the Zombie Bar Crawl Pre-Party Happy Hour).
Meet at 14th Street lot.

7pm: The Outbreak! The partying begins.

Locations: 
Wesley’s – 1201 Adams St.
Manhattans – 1516 Adams St. 
The Attic on Adams – 1701 Adams St. 
Ottawa Tavern – 1815 Adams St.
Bretz – 2012 Adams St.
Georgjz (formerly The Moxie) will have a one-time only soft opening – 1205 Adams St.
Toledo School for the Arts will provide zombie make up in exchange for a donation
Glass City Cafe is open from midnight-5am for late night breakfast.

Ten thousand zombies will meet downtown on Adams Street on Saturday, October 24— or, rather, 10,000 people dressed as zombies. They will come from Detroit, and Pittsburgh, and Cleveland to run in a zombie 5k, compete in a costume contest, dance to live (er, dead) music, and (playfully) terrorize the five bars between 12th and 21st streets in Uptown, a downtown neighborhood that, like the Zombie Crawl, keeps growing every year.

From one to 10,000

Six years ago, the five bars on Adams Street— Wesley’s, Manhattan’s, The Attic, Ottawa Tavern and Bretz— lacked a unifying event. So, Ryan Bunch, a member of the Arts Commission and resident of the Old West End, decided to organize an ad hoc zombie crawl, a Halloween-themed costume party on the move. Through Facebook invitations and word of mouth, Bunch expected 200 people to meet at Wesley’s. Instead, 750 zombiephiles arrived. Bunch, surprised but excited, took a megaphone, stood on a chair, and shouted for the crawl to begin.  

At the inaugural event, most zombies stayed in character as they walked from place to place, with open ‘wounds’ exposed, and clothing ripped and tattered. People walked with dead-eye stares and legs dragging like the characters for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. And the number who attend has continued to grow each year—  to 7,000 last year. The costumes are still inventively grisly, with wood axes as a popular accessory, but the vibe is now less scary and more celebratory. According to Bunch, “It gave the neighborhood something to rally around.”

For Bunch, the turning point for the zombie crawl, where it went from a homemade get-together to a sanctioned city celebration, came in 2013. Five thousand people showed up that year, and early in the evening then-Mayor Mike Bell, stood up behind the DJ booth at Wesley’s as Bunch had stood the very first year. Bell was dressed like an undead biker, with leather jacket and haunted eyes. And as everyone looked up, teeming to take the streets, the Mayor of Toledo shouted, “Zombies, let’s ride!” The crawl had finally found official endorsement. “It was total validation for how wonderfully absurd this event had become,” said Bunch.

The Village on Adams

The Zombie Crawl is now organized by the Village on Adams, a non-profit organization that formed last year to help redevelop the Adams Street neighborhood. With the five dollar admission fee charged at last year’s crawl, the group converted a vacant lot into a bocce ball court, and helped fund several murals. “The money goes back into the Adams Street,” said the Village’s Executive Director, Adam Sattler.

Sattler wants to make the daytime portion of the event more family-friendly. This year will showcase the first 5k Zombie Fun Run, and students from the Toledo School for the Arts (members of the neighborhood from the school at 14th and Adams) will provide zombie make-overs outside the school grounds. And there will be a costume contest, which will resemble a mash-up between a beauty pageant and a Black Sabbath concert. In past years, I’ve dressed as a harmless zombie (Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s) and more serious zombies (a mix between Beetlejuice and Night of the Living Dead), and friendly strangers approached me to discuss my costume each time. 

The nights, though, will be left for the walking dead. There will be a tent on 14th Street, filled with beer, music and dancing. Maumee Bay Brewing Company has created a special beer for the event called “Jefferson Lives,” which were allegedly President John Adams’s last words before he died.

After 7pm is when “all hell breaks loose,” said Sattler. But Sattler’s team of 25 security, 75 volunteers, and rotating cleaning crew will ensure a contained chaos. The evening’s macabre is tongue-in-cheek, the thrashed costumes just an excuse to get together as a community. It is Toledo’s fastest-growing party in a neighborhood that is growing along with it. Village on Adams board member, Mel Prior, told me, “It keeps exceeding expectations every year.”

Got a comment? Tweet us @TCPaper 
Tweet Dorian @DorianMarley

Dorian Slaybod is an attorney happily living in Toledo.

Zombie Crawl
Saturday, October 24
3pm-2:30am

3pm: Zombie Fun Run (family-friendly) 2.5K

5pm: The March of the Death (aka the Zombie Bar Crawl Pre-Party Happy Hour).
Meet at 14th Street lot.

7pm: The Outbreak! The partying begins.

Locations: 
Wesley’s – 1201 Adams St.
Manhattans – 1516 Adams St. 
The Attic on Adams – 1701 Adams St. 
Ottawa Tavern – 1815 Adams St.
Bretz – 2012 Adams St.
Georgjz (formerly The Moxie) will have a one-time only soft opening – 1205 Adams St.
Toledo School for the Arts will provide zombie make up in exchange for a donation
Glass City Cafe is open from midnight-5am for late night breakfast.

Ten thousand zombies will meet downtown on Adams Street on Saturday, October 24— or, rather, 10,000 people dressed as zombies. They will come from Detroit, and Pittsburgh, and Cleveland to run in a zombie 5k, compete in a costume contest, dance to live (er, dead) music, and (playfully) terrorize the five bars between 12th and 21st streets in Uptown, a downtown neighborhood that, like the Zombie Crawl, keeps growing every year.

From one to 10,000

Six years ago, the five bars on Adams Street— Wesley’s, Manhattan’s, The Attic, Ottawa Tavern and Bretz— lacked a unifying event. So, Ryan Bunch, a member of the Arts Commission and resident of the Old West End, decided to organize an ad hoc zombie crawl, a Halloween-themed costume party on the move. Through Facebook invitations and word of mouth, Bunch expected 200 people to meet at Wesley’s. Instead, 750 zombiephiles arrived. Bunch, surprised but excited, took a megaphone, stood on a chair, and shouted for the crawl to begin.  

At the inaugural event, most zombies stayed in character as they walked from place to place, with open ‘wounds’ exposed, and clothing ripped and tattered. People walked with dead-eye stares and legs dragging like the characters for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. And the number who attend has continued to grow each year—  to 7,000 last year. The costumes are still inventively grisly, with wood axes as a popular accessory, but the vibe is now less scary and more celebratory. According to Bunch, “It gave the neighborhood something to rally around.”

For Bunch, the turning point for the zombie crawl, where it went from a homemade get-together to a sanctioned city celebration, came in 2013. Five thousand people showed up that year, and early in the evening then-Mayor Mike Bell, stood up behind the DJ booth at Wesley’s as Bunch had stood the very first year. Bell was dressed like an undead biker, with leather jacket and haunted eyes. And as everyone looked up, teeming to take the streets, the Mayor of Toledo shouted, “Zombies, let’s ride!” The crawl had finally found official endorsement. “It was total validation for how wonderfully absurd this event had become,” said Bunch.

The Village on Adams

The Zombie Crawl is now organized by the Village on Adams, a non-profit organization that formed last year to help redevelop the Adams Street neighborhood. With the five dollar admission fee charged at last year’s crawl, the group converted a vacant lot into a bocce ball court, and helped fund several murals. “The money goes back into the Adams Street,” said the Village’s Executive Director, Adam Sattler.

Sattler wants to make the daytime portion of the event more family-friendly. This year will showcase the first 5k Zombie Fun Run, and students from the Toledo School for the Arts (members of the neighborhood from the school at 14th and Adams) will provide zombie make-overs outside the school grounds. And there will be a costume contest, which will resemble a mash-up between a beauty pageant and a Black Sabbath concert. In past years, I’ve dressed as a harmless zombie (Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s) and more serious zombies (a mix between Beetlejuice and Night of the Living Dead), and friendly strangers approached me to discuss my costume each time. 

The nights, though, will be left for the walking dead. There will be a tent on 14th Street, filled with beer, music and dancing. Maumee Bay Brewing Company has created a special beer for the event called “Jefferson Lives,” which were allegedly President John Adams’s last words before he died.

After 7pm is when “all hell breaks loose,” said Sattler. But Sattler’s team of 25 security, 75 volunteers, and rotating cleaning crew will ensure a contained chaos. The evening’s macabre is tongue-in-cheek, the thrashed costumes just an excuse to get together as a community. It is Toledo’s fastest-growing party in a neighborhood that is growing along with it. Village on Adams board member, Mel Prior, told me, “It keeps exceeding expectations every year.”

Got a comment? Tweet us @TCPaper 
Tweet Dorian @DorianMarley

Dorian Slaybod is an attorney happily living in Toledo.