What started as about 30 college kids dressed up as zombies freaking people out down on 3rd street in 2006 has grown. It’s grown into hundreds of the undead of all ages converging on all the downtown Winona bars and then literally taking them over, for better or for worse. It’s been very cool and humbling to witness the evolution of Winona Zombie Crawl over the last 8 years back to before zombies were cooler than vampires. And how do I know what the first crawl was like and how can I speak to the years of gore and glory making Winona Zombie Crawl the second oldest zombie crawl in the world? Because I was there, man. I was at them all, and I’ve been covered in blood and full of brains more times than I can recall. Because sometimes, it’s hard to remember all of Winona Zombie Crawl, but when you awake face-down on the couch the next day, stained red with zombie blood, face itchy with liquid latex, and head heavy with the previous night’s transgressions— you know you at least survived another year.
How did Winona Zombie Crawl even come to be? It’s much like the cause of the zombie infection in a George A. Romero flick. We may never know the origin, but it spreads, and it spreads fast. Since it has never been promoted beyond the internet and word of mouth, it has never gotten too big or too crowded like other more commercialized events. In fact, most of the bars don’t even know what is coming for them until it is too late. Some of them are just now, after all of these years, realizing that it happens on the same weekend every year. Even the haters come out to stand in opposition and many of the local weirdos and exhibitionists are there just to cash in on a reactive crowd. And everything is still free…well…except the drinks.
Winona Zombie Crawl 8: Too Late was the biggest and bloodiest yet with 9 official stops including The Legendary Tavern, Lucky’s, Bub’s, Cheater’s, Gabby’s, Market Street Tap, Mulligan’s and 2 official ending points with zombie parties. One, a zombie dance party at Ed’s (no name) Bar with Minneapolis’s pink bathrobe clad Speshul K (a Winona State grad mind you) and Winona’s bluesy classic rocking Manfort. The other, a sci-fi horror punk extravaganza at Broken World Records with Winona’s garage growlers, Tippler, and some of the Twin Cities’ freakiest, Trendy Trendy Space Vegans and MOMMY S3Z NO. Third Eye Tatu provided free zombie make-up before the crawl for the second year in a row. Their skilled artists on staff provided all the gory details needed to make a person look like they’d been through hell and back. All in all, it made being dead for the night a whole lot better than it sounds.
