The Zombie Rights Campaign had a great time at Nightmare on Chicago Street in Elgin last Saturday!

We were once again very impressed by the extremely creative, extremely hardworking Elgin crew, who create what is unambiguously the biggest, most elaborate Halloween public celebration and Zombie Walk we have ever seen.

(Like being in an action movie DVD on pause!)

It really puts the sad, soulless, tepid corporate spectacle Madison calls ‘Freakfest’ to shame.

As Madison residents, we will have to work on that.

We had our ZRC-Standard booth/outreach station, and decorated it to be festive, inviting, and above all, SAFE for the Zombie population, duly designated with a ‘Zombie Shelter’ sign.

In addition to our usual merchandise and literature, we also had CANDY, as befits the season, and offered it to Zombies, Zombie Allies, and, pragmatically, people who would at least feign alliance until they were out of earshot.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

This year Nightmare on Chicago Street had a special Steampunk theme, highlighting Zombiism from the early Industrial Age in a (probably apocryphal) account of Elgin’s history.

I do not claim to be an expert on Elgin’s past, so the ZRC has to take their claim of a minor, and unfortunately cruelly repressed, Zombie ‘outbreak’ in the 19th century at face value. If those Zombies existed, we clearly would be there for them… in a little over a century.

This individual was peddling an alleged ‘cure’ for Zombiism. I do not believe his wares were the least bit FDA approved!!

Of course, even the liquor merchants are peddling Zombie ‘cures’ this time of year.

Don’t get the wrong idea; profiteering opportunists aside, it was a largely tolerant crowd. We talked with a ton of cheerful, receptive people in Elgin this year, and I’m convinced we are gradually turning the whole city Zombie Friendly! Almost no arguments with our position, just interested folks who had not considered the issue of Zombie Rights, but were willing to learn.

And to wear our newest shirt! We were very happy with the response to that one, not least because each shirt’s net proceeds go to cancer research, furthering our efforts to showcase Zombies Doing Good.

The Zombie Rights Campaign had a great AND very productive outing, and we are already looking forward to next year in Elgin.

For additional pictures of the annual Elgin awesomeness, see our Flickr page here.

Tags: Public Appearance, Zombie Public Event, Zombies Doing Good

This entry was posted by John Sears on Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Lurch for the Cure, ZRC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.