Zombie Prom – A TTW Guest Post by Ellie Davis

Zombie Prom and Face-melting metal at your local library! Enjoy Prom like you’ve never experienced it before. Bring a can of food and join us in your Zombie worst or survivor best for an epic night at the Sweetwater County Library. All donations will go to our local Food Bank. The evening will begin with our annual Zombie Walk in which we will lurch down to the main street of town to Centennial Park where we will play a game of Zombies vs Humans, flag football style. We will re-group at the library for the Zombie Prom.

This year our music line-up is incredible. We gladly welcome Salt Lake City hard-core metal bands Breaux and Dethrone the Sovereignto our shin-dig, along with Green River favorites, A Human Medium and Picture It In Ruins. Opening the show will be a new addition to our local metal scene, Days May Come of Rock Springs.  Also photographers from Ohio Snap, Kyla Baumfalk and Shawn Huber will be taking free Prom pictures for everyone which can be retrieved from the Ohio Snap facebook page.

About Zombie Prom:

I got the idea for a Zombie Prom from a friend of mine, Jeremiah Castle, from Oregon five years ago. As soon as he mentioned it diabolical laughter began echoing through my brain (no pun intended). I had such a swirl of ideas flowing through my mind. I asked the library manager for permission to hold the event and she agreed. I began putting it together and reaching out to bands within a 200 mile radius and telling known zombie fans about it. The format for our event did not take long to evolve. I decided to make it a food drive so that we can give back to our community. Besides, zombies don’t need canned food anyway.

My friend Hannah Redden happens to be a zombie fanatic and she told me about a Zombie Walk. Again, that wicked laughter bubbled forth. I decided that we should definitely add that to the event, after all we might as well show off our costumes and chase willing people. It turns out that it is extremely fun to play zombie with hundreds of people.  Who knew? Of course we have a huge variety of zombie materials at the library, which we create a display for preceding this event.

This year promises to be the biggest event to date. I feel a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein because for the first time, all of the bands I invited to play the show agreed. This includes two well known bands from Salt Lake City, Utah, which is approximately 370 miles round trip from Green River.  The Salt Lake City bands are Breaux and Dethrone the Sovereign, both of whom opened the show for world renown metal band, The Human Abstract  and many others. Hailing from Green River are local favorites, A Human Medium along with Picture It In Ruins, who previously opened for the world famous band,  Protest the Hero. Opening our fifth annual Zombie Prom will be a band new to the metal scene, Days May Come.  For the first time we have professional photographers, Kyla Baumfalk and Shawn Huber of Ohio Snap Photography taking Prom pictures and filming the show.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing just how much chaos we can create within our allotted space this year. It is bound to be memorable and I have a really good feeling about it this year. I swear I can already hear the call for braaiiinnnss…

Ellie Davis is Young Adult Librarian and Assistant Manager of Youth Services at Sweetwater County Library in Wyoming.

 

Update: Hello everyone! I just want to let you all know that our 5th annual Zombie Walk and Zombie Prom was the best one to date. We had over 200 people on the actual Zombie Walk and great fun at the park playing Zombies vs Humans. The Zombie Prom was the biggest and best metal show that we have put on thus far with a gate count of about 700. We even had people attending from as far away as Brigham City, Utah! We gathered hundreds of items of non-perishable food items for our local Food Bank. Thank you so much to everyone for their help, support and participation in the most epic Zombie Walk and Zombie Prom ever. Check out our facebook page by searching for, Sweetwater County Library System and check out the pictures. You may also view pictures on facebook if you search, Ohio Snap Photography. Thank you again!