Lay down your axes, machete, shotgun, double taps and running shoes, Zombie Survivor is no more.
Many fans of the popular Zombie Survivor 5k Run woke up May 12 to a surprise greater than a flesh eater after their brains.
“This is quite possibly worse than waking up to the news that the Zombie Apocalypse is actually underway. This is my favourite run of the year! Tell me this is not the end of Zombie Survivor,” said Matthew Mantle on the Zombie Survivor Facebook event page.
Unfortunately, it might just be the end of the event, said Survivor co-creator Kyle Fitzgerald in an interview with the Eagle.
“Our registrations are way down this year, they’re literally a quarter of what we had at this time last year,” Fitzgerald said.
“We ran the numbers and tried to figure out what we could cut from the event to make it more cost effective, and it just wouldn’t be the same event (cutting the beer garden, obstacles, staff, etc.). We wouldn’t want to put on an event we couldn’t be proud to put our names on,” he said, instead opting to scrap the blood and guts 5km run.
“People are expecting a certain kind of event and we wouldn’t want to disappoint, so instead we’ve begun the process of refunding anyone who’s already paid,” Fitzgerald said.
With slow registration numbers, the Zombie Survivors also took a massive hit as two major sponsors pulled funding for the event, citing the downturn of the current economic environment as a possible key contributor to both the low registrant turnout and sponsor dollars.
The future of the event, which was set to go this summer at the Cochrane and District Agricultural Society grounds, is completely up in the air, said Fitzgerald.
“We’ve talked about the future of the run and we have decided that we probably aren’t going to be running the event ourselves,” Fitzgerald said, adding if anyone wanted to take over the event, he and his business partners wouldn’t be opposed to consulting, but for now, the event is deader than the creepers it’s named after.
“I don’t see us trying to run this event again. I think it would be far too hard to revive it after all that’s happened this year.”
And for all of those comments from upset supporters on Facebook, Fitzgerald gave this statement to the Eagle.
“I want to thank everyone for coming out the first two years; we all had a lot of fun. We’re really sorry we couldn’t bring the event back for a third year.”
