Zombie Walk - History

History

The earliest zombie walk on record was held on 19 August 2001 in Sacramento, California. The event, billed as "The Zombie Parade," was the brain-child of Bryna Lovig, who suggested it to the organizers of The Trash Film Orgy as a way to promote their annual midnight film festival. It was held again on 27 July 2002, and has since become an annual event, drawing over 1000 participants in 2012.

The idea spread to other cities and in October 2003 the second zombie gathering on record, billed as a "Zombie Walk" was held in Toronto, Ontario. It was organized by local horror movie fan, Thea Munster, and had only six participants. In subsequent years the Zombie Walk grew tremendously in size. The Zombie Walk then moved to Vancouver, B.C. and spread the zombie walk tradition to that city. On 27 August 2005, over 400 participants proceeded through Vancouver's Pacific Centre Mall, travelled on the SkyTrain (referred to for the event as the "SkyBrain" or the "BrainTrain") and continued 35 blocks to Mountain View Cemetery.

The mid to late 2000s saw an exponential gain in popularity for zombie walks due largely to the increase of successful zombie films at the time, the Resident Evil movies, 28 Days Later, Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, and Zombieland being a few examples. Documentation of the phenomenon appeared in mainstream news media and blogs, such as Boingboing and the Blog of the Living Dead. Zombie walks soon spread across North America and to cities around the globe, such as Mar del Plata, Argentina. On 27 October 2012, Singapore's first large-scale zombie walk - Singapore Zombie Walk - will be held in Clarke Quay at 829pm. Rio de Janeiro had its first Zombie Walk on 2 November 2007 (Day of the Dead holiday) and the event has become annual since then.

On 29 October 2006, nearly 900 "zombie walkers" gathered at the Monroeville Mall outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which served as the set of George A. Romero's classic zombie film Dawn of the Dead, to participate in Pittsburgh's first annual Walk of the Dead. In addition to setting a Guinness World Record, the event was a benefit for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Pittsburgh's zombie walk has since grown into an annual horror festival called Zombie Fest. Zombie Fest is organized by The It's Alive Show, a local Pittsburgh late night horror and science fiction television program. The Pittsburgh festival plays host to the annual Walk of the Dead as well as a zombie ball, costume contest, concerts, and celebrity guest appearances. Zombie Fest also serves as the headquarters of The It's Alive Show's World Zombie Day, a world hunger charity event.

Zombie walks are also a regular occurrence at ZomBcon, "the world's first zombie convention." ZomBcon takes place every October in Seattle, Washington. Apart from zombie walks, ZomBcon also features panel discussions with zombie authors, actors and artists, workshops, film screenings, and other activities for zombie fans. ZomBcon also organizes Seattle's annual Red, White and Dead zombie walk every July.