With summer just around the corner, Seattle welcomes the return of warm summer nights, family vacations, the afternoon barbeque and Zombies? Yes, thousands of Zombies are planning their return to Fremont this Fourth of July weekend to walk and dance their way back into the history books for a bloody good time and cause.

The Fremont Outdoor Movies is counting on all of Seattle to come out and represent their city to return the Guinness World Record back to its rightful owner and crown Seattle the “Zombie Capital of the World” once and for all in the Dead Center of the Universe – Fremont.

The Zombie walk world record is 4,026 and currently held by the Big Chill Music Festival in the England, which narrowly edged out Seattle’s 3,894 last August. Event Producer, Ryan Reiter believes it will take 10,000 zombies to hold onto it for a while, but is confident Seattle can do it. Eric Pope of The Seattle Zombie Walk organization is back to help unite and lead the official Zombie Walk this July and excited about the possibilitIes.

This year’s festivities will return with a huge Thriller Dance, Zombie fashion show, musical performances, special guests and all time Zombie classic, George A. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD. This year’ event will also include a blood drive, canned food drive and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the  local non profit organization, the Seattle International Film Festival in support of their new film center that will be at the Seattle Center.

Jon Hegeman, Founder of the Fremont Outdoor Movies tells us “This is all about community celebration, having fun, supporting a great cause and not about bragging rights; but who doesn’t love a little healthy rivalry for a great cause to make things more interesting? Fremont is the perfect neighborhood to celebrate such a fun accomplishment.”

In response to skeptics, Reiter says “There are a lot of people watching us who don’t think Seattle can do it, one being Grand Rapids, Michigan, who continue to claim they hold the Guinness World Record. It remains unofficial to this date…so I leave it to the people of Seattle to decide its fate to bring it back home. I know we can do it.”

Eric Pope, Seattle Zombie Walk and Ryan Reiter, Founder ZomBcon st SDCC’09

This year the walk falls on a Saturday with the festivities starting a bit earlier to ensure people can have time to get their make-up done on-site. Participants can register online and make their $3.00 donation ahead of time to make their entrance to the event much faster and track our numbers to make the Guinness World Record submission much easier. People can register starting May 1st at the official ZomBcon website

Reiter talks about the magic of last year’s success by saying “It encouraged all of us tap into our inner Zombie, get dressed up, interact with their neighbors and indulge in fan culture; offering a positive spin on what a Zombie outbreak might just look like…and it looked pretty darn good.”

This year also marks the “Year of the Zombie” and Seattle seems to be the center of attention, as 2010 marks another first for Seattle with ZomBcon, the world’s first Zombie Culture Convention infecting Seattle on Halloween weekend at the Seattle Center and Experience Music Project with over 100 Exhibitors, 10 interactive fan workshops, panels, a SIFF-curated film series, and Halloween Masquerade , Zombie Prom party. We plan to have a collection of experts, authors, filmmakers, historians, celebrities and all the gear and fan fare for the Quintessential Zombie fan.

Photography by Kelly Bailey

It’s the first of it’s kind in the world on the convention circuit and we plan to have some amazing guests and events to kick off it’s first year” says Reiter, Founder of ZomBcon.

Along with early support from community supporters, The Seattle International Film Festival and Experience Music Project the very excited for the opportunity to bring another big event that celebrates fan culture to Seattle.