Participation in Saturday’s “Madtown Brain Drain” Zombie Pub Lurch isn’t exactly inexpensive, but we’re certain it will be a source of cheap thrills for non-participants, too – and it’s definitely a bargain compared to Saturday’s Plague Day at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.
We can’t even remember who alerted us to Plague Day at the Faire, where zombies are admonished to show up in period costumes, not Armani, but it sounded interesting even though it was a bit far from Madison on the Cheap fare. That event, however, requires two admission tickets: one to the Bristol Renaissance Faire ($18.95; $12 with a coupon code) and a separate Plague Day Pass ($10) to The Glade – “appropriately decorated with a medieval (med-evil?) zombie theme to give it that freshly-dug-grave feeling.”
Compared to the combined price of the two tickets (plus a tank full of gas to drive to the Kenosha-Illinois Border), the “Madtown Brain Drain” Zombie Pub Lurch is definitely a good deal. For $15, you receive an official t-shirt and admission to the post-lurch dance at the High Noon Saloon, 701 E. Washington Avenue, with music by All the Pretty Horses and The Mother Hive Syndicate.
For those of us unwilling or unable to fork over $15 – and for Madison’s scores of Flickr photographers – there should be lots of cheap thrills and great photo ops between the time the Lurch starts at 6 p.m. at the Regent Street Retreat, 1206 Regent and the dance begins at 10 p.m. There will be zombies lurching from pub to pub for four hours. Mapquest gave us driving directions that covered the distance in 2.49 miles by driving down John Nolen Drive, but we doubt the zombies will follow that path.
If you’re not planning to attend the post-lurch dance at the High Noon Saloon, we can offer you a stay-at-home zombie option with a bit of a Madison connection: Rent or buy a copy of “Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane,” a zombie movie co-written and co-produced by UW-Madison and Madison Central High School alumnus, Sidney Iwanter (a.k.a. Greenbush Boy).
