Brains
That was the word of the day on Denver’s 16th Street Mall on Saturday October 17th 2015. The reason for this word of the day is because it was Denver’s 10th annual Zombie Crawl. “What’s this?”, you may ask. The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple answer is that it is ever AMC’s The Waking Dead’s Cosplay fantasy. The more complicated answer depends on who you talk to.
For some it is just a fun way to get out of the house and let lose. For others it is a way of practicing for what to do in the event of a true Zombie apocalypse. There were also some that use events like this to make a little bit of money. For others it’s a way to get involved in the current pop culture phenomenon. If you ask those who organize this event, it is for the whole other reason entirely. while the original reasons to why are unknown, this years crawl has two things that were trying to be achieved. The first being in my humble opinion the least important was to set the record for being the world’s largest zombie crawl ever. The official results are not in yet. The second and more important was for zombies, survivors, spectators, and anyone else to bring a non perishable food item to donate to THE FOOD BANK OF THE ROCKIES. Sorry, Zombie brains are perishable. The group Eye Heart Brains is who hosts this great event.
The event is also sponsored by such places as THE ARC THRIFT SHOP. There were other supporters there as well such as Umbrella Corp Denver, which is a non-profit resident evil cosplay group. The Umbrella Corp is a prominent group at all Zombie events. What makes them so interesting is their mission which is to support the local community and military veterans by providing costume appearances at events, volunteering and to have fun doing it. This year they were taking donations for a charity that was created by Chris Kyle. To find out more about The Umbrella Corp Denver group, visit their website.
Other things were happening at the crawl as well such as DJ’s spinning some great beats. I also noticed a spray paint artist that did amazing work. I was unable to get a card to share her info but I will continue to try to find her. There were makeup artists everywhere turning the living into the undead. The even itself had some games and activities. One of those activities was a race that teams had to use clues to find the next checkpoint. There were cash prizes for the top three mini hords. It was an activity that I wish I had been able to partake in this event that was called THE ORGAN TRAIL. Did they do a costume contest? You bet they did! Again, because the stats are not posted I don’t know for sure who won. Another activity that they were having was their crawl or “shuffle” in this case. The parade started at the 16th and Arapaho and shuffled up the mall to Welton Street and back down, and of course everyone danced to Thriller.
From my point of view, you could not ask for a more fun way to spend a Saturday and give to a great cause. I will definitely be going back next year and I hope to see you all there. One final note: the brain is tasty.
https://www.facebook.com/umbrellacorp.denver/