For the first time ever, The Cape Fear Botanical Gardens hosted a Halloween event. Not a moment too soon. Some decision-makers, who I presume weren’t educators, chose to have a literary crawl for the October Fourth Friday instead of the Zombie Walk. Perhaps last year’s Zombie event was too successful and made too much money. To balance that result, the decision-makers sponsored an event that caused downtown Fayetteville to look like a ghost town.
Any educator, former or active, could have told the decision-makers that Fayetteville, NC isn’t the cultural setting that would bring out a throng of people to do a “crawl” that didn’t involve a signature drink at each stop AND dress as your favorite literary character. The unofficial slogan should be “Keep Halloween Halloweeny!”
I painted my face once again for this holiday season and did what I loved doing: posing in costume for pictures.
We made the most of the short lighted garden walk. At one point, I spied a bench that I knew would make a good setting for pictures.
Although the gardens were decorated for the Christmas season, we made the most of the decorations by posing at one end of the bench.
The princess’ outfit glittered even more by the lights.
Some showed off their props in action poses.
Two women, who hadn’t consulted one another about costumes prior to attending the event, brainstormed a scenario while waiting their turn.
The cheerleader pretended to be ill and reported to the nurses’ office.
Although I didn’t take any video, the premise brought out the filmmaker in me. I could have captured the scene in far more angles.
For the final bench picture, I had a movie poster in mind and directed the character how I wanted her to pose.
The employees warned us to stick to the lit parts of the garden, which I didn’t have to be told once. Without the lights, the garden was horror movie dark.
As a matter of fact, the lone white guy in our group kept joking about being a stereotypical white guy and suggesting that we “split up into groups to cover more area.”
After the costume contest, where I came in second place, the DJ played dance music. Previously, we were concerned that the advertised 90s music was going to be, at best, karaoke songs.
Although the crowd was lively, we were all spread out. Hopefully, the Gardens will have another Halloween event and not kill the vibe with some high brow notion that books will bring people out in droves.