Stories from the parade
Long reads about the people, the stunts and the small miracles behind a FREE festival that keeps growing.
Making Davis history: the morning a hot-air balloon rose over the cemetery
On November 1, 2025, Davis got something it had never had before: free tethered hot-air balloon rides over the Davis Cemetery & Arboretum, closing out the 7th annual festival with a line that started forming at 5 am.
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The least glamorous donation we get, and one of the best
Recology has donated the festival's bins year after year. That saving is a real part of how the parade funds custom trikes for children with disabilities.
Zombies fall from the sky: inside the Skydance Skydiving grand finale
Every festival ends the same way: thousands of necks craning skyward as PRO-rated skydivers trail smoke and giant flags down into Community Park. Here is how that tradition got FAA approval and a five-year emcee.
Why we ride: NorCal Trykers, Gill Williams and where the money goes
NorCal Trykers builds custom adaptive tricycles for kids with disabilities, and they are the reason this festival exists. More than $50,000 and 42 trikes later, here is the story of the nonprofit it was all built to fund.
It all just clicked: how the Zombie Bike Parade began
A failed Guinness record, a physical therapist's pitch, and one Davis Enterprise ad rep who was, in his own words, dying to do it. Here is how 250 riders in 2019 turned into a whole Halloweekend.
The Arcade: how Davis teenagers built a Zombie Bike Parade video game
Da Vinci Charter Academy's Video Game Design Club built a festival-themed adaptation of their own game, fire-blasting scepter, ZomBees, giant snail boss battle and all. It is free to play at the Davis Arts Center every festival.
Business zombies: how downtown Davis gets ambushed every October
A committee in full zombie makeup invades a different Davis business every fall for a marketing photo, and the resulting sponsor spotlights, plus a stamp-collecting Zombie Kingdom Quest, are how the festival keeps its 200-plus partners engaged.
The Zombie Ball: from a downtown mash to a red-carpet night at the Lodge
What started as a scrappy 2021 street party for the skydiving crowd has grown into an 18-and-up, sold-out ticketed night with a costume showcase, a medium, a tarot reader and proceeds to Thriving Pink.
Zombie Prime: six years behind the green screen
Matthew Strong of Action Flipbooks has run the festival's green screen and 360 photo booth since close to the beginning, a family affair the festival itself now calls one of its longest-running legends.
Rolling entertainment: BMX, a very small train, and live bats
From StuntMasters BMX riders to a rented California Dream Express train to a bat rescue director who brings the real thing, here is what fills Community Park between the parade and the skydiving finale.
It takes an undead village: the volunteers who make it happen
Behind every skydiving finale and every balloon morning is a bench of dozens of Odd Fellows members, ride assistants, logistics leads and HQ staff who show up every fourth Friday to plan it, then again on the day to run it.
Of course it's a bike parade. This is Davis.
Davis has called itself Bicycle Capital of America since 1964, built the country's first standardized bike lanes, and houses the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame. A zombie parade on bikes was never really optional here.
Say brains: a field guide to dressing undead in Davis
From asymmetrical clothing cuts to green foundation to a ten-year-old's $2 face-painting stand, here is how Davis turns an ordinary Sunday into a townwide costume contest with more than 50 prizes on the line.
