Thank you to everyone who participated in this years Brisbane Zombie Walk! It has been estimated there were 1500 people taking part in the walk (including zombies, survivors, photographers etc). The walk was a huge success, as was the after-party at Planet Nightclub.
However, there were a few incidents that need to be high-lighted so that we can learn and hope not to repeat on future walks.
Firstly, there was an incident at the finishing point where a certain zombie launched himself into an unsuspecting crowd of zombies play-acting for the photographers. Because no one expected this, no one was prepared to catch him and one person was badly injured (this person later turned out to be a friend of the people behind the organisation of the walk, as a matter of fact).
While there was no permanent damage sustained, she was taken away in an ambulance amid fears her neck was broken. This is very, very serious. The person responsible regretted his actions immediately and made sure to stay with the injured girl until she was taken to the hospital. It was a lapse of good judgement and had severe consequences. I hope that not only he, but everyone at the walk has learnt a valuable lesson from this incident.
Other incidents while less serious in nature need to be observed as they could have potentially compromised the future of the Brisbane Zombie Walk.
There were many incidents reported from many different people of zombies harassing people not involved in the walk, many of whom wanted no involvement. It was great to see passers-by getting involved with the walk, but there were a great deal who wanted nothing to do with it and therefore should have been left alone.
There were incidents where zombies entered shops when passing by the Queen Street Mall and harassed staff, participants caught graffitting walls and other public property, smearing (and even spitting) blood on shop windows and other public property, people smearing fake blood onto other zombies against their wishes and more disturbingly - on people not involved in the walk.
It goes without saying that the walk needed people to use their common sense in order to make the day enjoyable for everyone, and it's sad to see that there were a few people who seemed intent on causing as much trouble and using as little common sense as possible. This is not on in any way, shape or form and could have meant the end of future zombie walks.
Something else that should be noted is that there was not a police escort as there was supposed to be. As a result, I believe many of these incidents could have been avoided if we had the police guiding the walk along its route. We are currently awaiting a response as to why they were not present. Regardless, it was not an excuse for people to act up the way they did.
On top of this it was up to myself, the primary organiser of the walk, and my friends and family to try and manage everyone - something very difficult to do since a lot of people did not think we had the authority to give directions or orders and simply chose to defy us.
Whiile I think we did a great job, especially considering there were only a few us looking after the entire event, it also meant we missed many of the aforementioned incidents, particularly the one with the injured girl - only finding out about the incident later at the after-party. If you know of any further incidents that we missed, please let us know so we can have them on record.
As for the after-party - it was a great success and there have been no major complaints thus far. Please note we were unable to organise bands for this years after-party due to time and money limitations, but we believe the DJs did a very good job nonetheless.
We want to thank Planet Nightclub for not only allowing hundreds of blood-stained, makeup-covered zombies to take over the venue, but also for allowing it to be all-ages and dropping the usual $5 entry.
Regards,
Cara Westworth and your friendly zombie walk team.
Posted by Cara on May 27, 2008. 6 comments.
