There is a specific moment at the Zombie Bike Parade Festival when every conversation in Community Park stops at once. It happens right after the bike loop empties back out, when the announcer starts counting down, and a few thousand people who were a moment ago eating pizza and admiring seven-foot zombie costumes all turn their heads to the same patch of blue sky. Then the smoke trails appear, and the zombies start falling.
How it got off the ground
The first Skydance Skydiving grand finale happened on Sunday, October 31, 2021, the 3rd annual ride, right at Community Park, 3:00 to 3:15 pm, immediately after the bike loop wrapped. It did not happen by accident. Skydance's management team secured FAA approval for the drop, and some of the operation's top skydivers went through training specifically to earn PRO ratings, a certification that requires hundreds, sometimes thousands, of jumps before a diver is cleared to land in a crowded public park rather than an open field.
The whole thing was funded that first year by Lawson Youmans of Hallmark Properties and Mathias Klein of Klein Hardwood Flooring, who, per the festival's own account, "didn't hesitate to cover all major expenses." On the ground, the landing zone was set up and secured by the Davis Boy Scouts' all-girl troop and the Davis Adventure Society Navigators, volunteers doing quiet, essential work while everyone else watched the sky.
Who's up there
Skydance Skydiving has operated out of the Yolo County Airport, 24390 Aviation Ave, since 1987, flying a PAC750XL and jumping into Community Park before the July 4 fireworks long before zombies ever got involved. Three of their divers appear on the festival's own team page: Brian Naiman, Managing Partner of Skydance and a former engineer who became a partner during the pandemic; Chris Peterson, a Skydance tandem instructor who once took a 100-year-old Roseville woman on a birthday jump; and Josh Kesler, listed simply as "Zombie Skydiver."
"As the flying zombies parachuted into the field and we clapped in awe of what we had just witnessed..." (Austin Oney, on his first weekend as a Davis resident, October 2022)
Since 2025 the team has brought down giant 20-foot flags representing Hallmark's apartment communities along with the usual trail of colored smoke, which the festival's own copy now describes as "trailing vibrant clouds of smoke and giant flags." It is equal parts stunt and sponsor billboard, and somehow both halves work.
The voice from the ground
None of it would land, so to speak, without Bob Bowen, who the festival calls "our legendary Drop Zone emcee for the past five years" as of the 2025 event. Bowen announces the skydivers and the festival's 120-plus sponsors from the ground, and his résumé stretches well beyond Halloween: he helped bring the US Bicycling Hall of Fame to Davis and created the Davis Children's Nutcracker. Learn more about the town he helps narrate in why a bike town takes its Halloween this seriously.
The rally band Noise Violation reportedly saves its biggest boom for the exact moment before the skydivers descend, and Watermelon Music lends the sound system that carries the countdown across the park. Read more about the entertainment stations that surround the drop zone in our field guide to the park.
Weather, and the year the jump got complicated
Not every year lands clean. In 2025, Sunday, October 26 was overcast and drizzly, and the day-of Instagram posts pivoted to advertise the finale slot as the Primally Playful Foundation's "Kids vs Parents ZOMBIE SHOWDOWN," a foam-ball battle. The festival's own recap called it "a brand new grand finale," language that strongly suggests the jump itself was scrubbed for weather that day, though the exact call has not been confirmed publicly. For 2026, the finale is currently listed at 2:30 pm on the festival home page (2:45 pm on the city engagement page), Saturday, October 31, at Community Park, weather (and sky drama) permitting.
Crowd footage from the first-ever skydiving finale, October 31, 2021.
If you have never stood in Community Park at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon while a few thousand strangers all point at the same cloud, put it on your calendar. See the rest of the day's lineup on the Skydiving Finale event page, and if you want a spot on the landing-zone crew, volunteers are how that patch of grass stays clear every single year.
