If you happen to be downtown Kalamazoo during the evening of Oct. 20 don’t be alarmed if you see several thousand sallow eyed people with massive head wounds.
What may look like the first stage of the apocalypse will--if all goes well--actually be a record-breaking number of zombies gathered in a single location.
The current world record was set on Oct. 30 of 2010 when 4,093 members of the living dead congregated on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, NJ.
In an attempt to break the current record, Kalamazoo’s Osha Kelly is organizing the area’s first Zombie Festival: two hours of games, music and gore.
"It’s something anyone can do," Kelly says. "You can be as creative as you want, it doesn’t take much to become a zombie. It’s cheap and it’s just plain fun."
The actual process of gathering folks--both living, the living dead and otherwise--together is a fairly simple procedure. What's complicated is the Guinness Book of World Records demands that the event be precisely recorded if the record is to be officially accepted.
"There is a great deal of documentation required," Kelly says. "We have to have it filmed by two different people, independent of me. We have to submit photographs, aerial photographs.
"The most difficult requirement I think is there has to be about 85 stewards and the role of the steward is to basically fill out a couple pages of documentation to serve as a witness statement."
The Guinness Book states that there must be at least one steward for every 50 zombies in attendance or the record will not be counted.
Beyond zombie counting, the festival which runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. will also have children’s games and music from local act Plastic Fantastic, performing a song exclusively for the event.
For more information on Zombie Festival 2012 or to become a volunteer visit
here.
Writer: Jeremy Martin, Second Wave Media
Source: Osha Kelly, Zombie Festival 2012
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