On Sunday 26th October a horde of zombie fans will gather in central London.

They will be taking part in an international event: WORLD ZOMBIE DAY! 50 cities across the globe are holding similar gatherings, aiming to celebrate the 40th anniversary of 'Night of the Living Dead' (the film that birthed our zombie friends into popular culture), as well as raising money and awareness for local charities.

World Zombie Day: London is supporting the capital's largest homeless charity, St Mungo's.

http://www.justgiving.com/worldzombiedaylondon


RISE UP UNDEAD BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!!

NOW IS OUR TIME TO GROAN AND SHAMBLE FOR WORLD HUNGER!

World Zombie Day will be a day when all fans of zombie culture can join together. All of the cities involved will do their bit to alleviate world hunger, and this will be a first.

"The It’s Alive Show", World Record Holders for the largest zombie walk ever, will spearhead this event from the very birthplace of zombie culture, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

...can London give them a run for their money this year...? ;)

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UPDAAAAAATE...!

This one is quite important: I've been reminded that the clocks go back this weekend, so please make sure you pay attention to that and avoid turning up at the wrong time on Sunday!

Our raffle is now official and we have some wonderful prizes! Have a look:

- Shirts : All from the *wonderful* Last Exit to Nowhere website: http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/.
1 x XL Dawn of the Dead 'WGON TV' (http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/tshirt/047/)
1 x L Dawn of the Dead 'WGON TV'
1 x Medium Ladies 'Winchester' (http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/tshirt/039/)

- DVDs :
Dawn of the Dead remake
Resident Evil
Night of the Living Dead
Land of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
The Plague of the Zombies

- plus: 3 zombie boxsets kindly donated by Revolver Entertainment : http://www.revolvergroup.com/index.html
RISE OF THE FLESH EATERS - containing The Zombie Diaries, Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! and Days of Darkness.

We'll be selling the raffle tickets from midday. It'll be easier to give them to you as we mill about at the meeting place (Marble Arch!), but the likelihood is you'll be able to buy them at any point until we actually pull the winners out of the hat later on in the day (details on route in a min).

All proceeds from the raffle will go to St Mungo's, naturally. So please join in the fun.

Now, 'Dead Set'. Are you excited about Charlie Brooker's 5-parter 'Dead Set'? Would you like to win free tickets to attend the screening of it (in full) in central, at 7pm Sunday night AND entry into the afterparty? If so, then you need to make an extra special effort with your outfit. We'll be giving away five pairs of tickets to the best dressed/most impressive/most gross zombies.
Initial plan is that, if you impress us you will be shortlisted. We'll pick fifteen zombs and then either put it to the vote later on, or decide between ourselves who the lucky five are. The ten runners up will receive 'Dead Set' DVDs - possibly signed!

So get to it! It's properly Hallowe'en season now, so there's loads of fodder in the shops to dress the discerning zombie.

If any of you are panicking about your look for the day, don't :) It's all about fun! Here are some guides to help you along:
http://www.terror4fun.com/zombie_makeup_guide1.html
http://www.terror4fun.com/zombie_makeup_guide2.html

A note on photos taken on the day:
The wonderful Sarah Hayden has a JPEG of a letter from the Home Office detailing how, in public places, you can take as many photos as you want. This is just in case any police bug us about such a thing. Hopefully they won't, but it doesn't hurt to have the paperwork to back yourself up. Drop Sarah a message if you'd like a copy (tell me, and I'll pass it on).
Alsoooo... you may wish to submit any particularly good snaps you take on the day, to this: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=22507991214&topic=5106 I definitely will be!

Press attention is humming nicely along, with Bizarre Magazine covering the crawl on the day (for publication on Nov 25th), and the Zone Horror website giving us a mention too - http://www.uk.zonehorror.tv/Horror_news/

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FURTHER UPDATE...

Raffle:
Okay so there was a little bit of a boo-boo with the Last Exit To Nowhere shirts. We now have three 'Winchester' shirts in varying sizes to give away. Still bloody cool though so we shan't complain.

We also now have two copies of the brilliant Jamie Russell book 'Book of the Dead' (http://www.eatmybrains.com/showfeature.php?id=36) AND a few official World Zombie Day London T-shirts as further raffle prizes.

Route:
I've been thinking about a route and come to the conclusion that a vague one is better than none at all. So how's about we say:
Marble Arch -> Oxford Street until we hit Oxford Circus -> down Regent St until we hit Piccadilly Circus -> down Shaftesbury Avenue -> up Charing Cross Road -> ending up at the Intrepid Fox (by Centrepoint).

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/2963875363_fd87ff4cde_o.jpg

Nice and touristy. We can always play it by (rotting) ear on the day, we can meander down side streets and the like... And of course there will be pub stops! But let's just say this is the basic plan as of now.

Of course you are welcome to splinter off if you really want to/hate the above route - in fact, I love the idea of little grouplets of us shambling about - but to have as many zombs as possible present at the Fox for the raffle would be lovely - plus you'd get to hear if you've won any of our wonderful prizes! The Fox opens at 5pm on a Sunday so we can say this is the "meeting up again" time and point, if you do go renegade for a while :)

'Dead Set':
With regards to the E4 'Dead Set' screening, we are planning to get to the cinema in question (Apollo West End, 19 Regent St) for around 6pm. It would be ace to storm a bus/tube down to Piccadilly for this, so even if you can't make it into the screening, please consider a visit down for the fun and photo ops beforehand.

After the photos and general zombie mischief, the lucky ticket winners (and anyone else with a ticket) will head into the showing at around 7pm. It wraps up the day a little early for some of us, so anything after 7pm that night is up fer grabs really - just make sure you have fun.

A quick mention of further helpers/pluggers:
- Kevan at Urban Dead (http://www.urbandead.com/) has kindly given as an advert spot on the game. As a fan of the game, this makes me giddily happy. Keep a look out for the WZD London artwork assaulting your eyeballs as you play!
- Apparently were in the London Lite on Monday! Did anyone see? Did anyone save a copy of the paper?! I can't believe I missed it. But whoop whoop for the plug anyway.

Final bits...
Remember to PLEASE BRING EXTRA BLOOD AND MAKE-UP ON THE DAY! You *always* need more and it's nice to share if a fellow zomb needs helping out. So come well stocked :)

Numbers are looking really impressive now* so I feel it's time to mention the importance of playing nicely and taking responsibility for yourselves. I know this sounds dull and lecture-like but it is important stuff and it's my duty as organiser to say it... Acting up is hilarious and encouraged but please try to avoid the more vulnerable members of the public, such as heavily pregnant ladies and OAPs! It's just not worth it! Also please do not "attack" anyone who isn't into it or aware of playing along, as that's just not cool either.
Common sense tells you the boundaries really; let's all just have a right laugh without overstepping any serious ones!


*How good would it be to have the most attendees of all the 52 cities worldwide taking part? C'mon!

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**FINAL UPDATE:**

Are we all ready? Blood and brains all stocked up and ready to roll?

Just some final things to tell you all - although don't rule out another message later if I realise I've forgotten something...

- WZD London received a very special raffle prize in the post yesterday. It's come all the way from Zombie HQ in Pittsburgh! It is this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Movies-Ultimate-Glenn-Kay/dp/0889628688
The cover art is different (better) on the copy you can win though.

- Talking of the raffle: would anyone like to help us sell the tickets? We can't offer you much more than a drink or two bought for you and the warm glow of helping to raise money for charity... but hopefully that's an incentive for some of you?! The more helpers we have the easier it'll be. Let me know.

- We have a fair few people coming with things to offer zombie fans it seems. I've been getting e-mails this week regarding music video recruitment and also videogame releases, so keep an eye out on the day for anything you can blag/get involved in. There will hopefully be some interesting offers floating about.
(I didn't want this to become a commercial venture of course, but have given my 'permission' to those I thought fellow zombie fans might be interested in).

- It's a little late for requests I know, but if anyone would like to make a placard or two for tomorrow, that would not only be really very cool - but they are handy as anything for spotting the horde in a crowd of civilians. Something along the lines of http://austinist.com/attachments/austinist_shannon/zombies.jpg if you need any inspiration. I wish I'd had time to do this myself :/

- Another reminder that after the event, do remember to upload your photos and tell all where they can be found! On Facebook, Myspace, Flickr... wherever. It's always cool looking back over pics from the day.

- **Don't forget about the clocks going back tonight!**

See you all tomorrow at midday at Marble Arch (it looks like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Marble.arch.london.arp.jpg and you will probably have to take a walkway under the surround roads to get to it). Excited!!!

Thanks once again to everyone who has helped to spread the word, see you soon!