The Fine Arts Club recently hosted their annual Zombie Tag event on Friday, October 25th. Tickets were sold leading up to the event for $5 at all four lunches. Students who were participating were required to meet in Cafe B to discuss the rules of the game and to also receive their items for the game.
Photo from Chris Mastrangelo’s Twitter page.
President Triniti Nguyen stated that “planning [did not] take too long” as Zombie Tag has been a recurring event every year, but they did have to “get people to to help sell tickets,” and receive permission from Principal Chris Mastrangelo to host the event.
Secretary Aylia Fournier mentioned that they advertised Zombie Tag by having it in the “announcements every morning until the event,” and also by “hanging up posters around the school,” with addition to advertising it during lunch.
Junior Carolina Cuvas, a member of the club, further added that the profits raised are used towards art supplies and other events. Also, the proceeds are used for an end of the year party which is to “celebrate the senior members of the club.”
Malden High Art teacher and Fine Arts Club adviser, Joseph Luongo, described that each student was given a bandana to be worn either on their arm or on their neck in order to indicate if they were either a human or a zombie. A bandana around their arm would mean that person was a human and if it were on their neck they would be a zombie. In addition, socks were given out to the players which they can use to throw at the zombies which is followed by the zombie freezing for ten seconds.
Before starting each round, two or three students were set aside to be zombies. After starting, participants were able to run through only the second and third floor hallways. Participants were not allowed to hide in classrooms, lockers, or bathrooms.
During each round, announcements were made through the speaker to either tell if the round was over or to call out where the humans were hiding. A new round would restart when there were no humans left over.
Vice President Maple Song said that a problem they faced was trying to sell tickets during lunch as there was a challenge in getting a table which resulted in the officers “sharing tables because other people would be using the table before [them].” Also, she explained that there were not many people who could volunteer to sell the tickets as “[they could not] cover all four lunches some days.”
Song explained that her favorite part about Zombie Tag as an officer, would be “watching everything on cameras” and “hearing how people thought of the game.” She specifically explained how in one of the rounds, there was a hoard of humans on the second floor of the Holland building and once the announcer revealed their location, “[they] see the group split into two directions at light speed,” which she noted that “[they] all had a laugh at that.”
As for the players, sophomore Kellie Zhu stated that the most enjoyable part was having the chance to “play with people [they would not] usually hang out with,” and so Zombie Tag was able to “introduce [her] to people that [she has] seen but [have not] had the opportunity to really talk to.”
Adding on to that thought, sophomore Leslie Rodriguez expressed that it was a nice time to “team up with people [she] does not work with as much,” and learning what “strategies work best as the rounds progressed.”
Nguyen stated that Zombie Tag has “intentionally low stakes so that participants can focus on having fun,” as a lot of students are busy with class work, jobs, and other commitments. She personally loved the idea of “giving people an afternoon to just run around and have fun.”
Fournier believes that without the event, she would have never been able to “hang out and socialize with the lower and upper classmen outside of the ones [she is] friends with.” She emphasized that due to it not being an exclusive event, it overall “promotes interaction between students that would have never socialized with each other.”
In the future, the Fine Arts Club is planning to host more events and fundraisers including the gingerbread decorating for the winter holiday, selling balloons for Valentine’s Day, and possibly another Zombie Tag in the spring.
