By Sylvia Benavidez
Drivers through Marshall’s downtown and the close surrounding streets would have a hard time missing some of the dressed-up skeletons lining the sidewalks. The kick-off party for the city’s annual Skeleton Fest which runs through October was Saturday, Sept. 28.
Every year Marshall’s tourism office hosts a kick-off party to announce that the skeletons are on display downtown for a month. The differently dressed skeletons made their appearance in 2017 in Marshall.
Amy Peterson, director of marketing for Choose Marshall and Kimber Thompson, director of tourism for Choose Marshall sat down for an interview Wednesday. “…People always want to come and see what they are dressed as, what do they look like, get your photos,” said Peterson.
The kick-off party had been directed towards kid, but this year, activities for adults were added to the fun. The new adult party happened Saturday evening. “We had a Witches Walk and Witches Dance. We had fortune tellers,” said Thompson. The Witches Dance, the women explained is a popular dance done all around the world on social media.
“We had a witch’s costume contest,” said Peterson. “There were tiny witches and there were the adult wicked witches and after that we performed the Witches Dance with everybody, and you can join in and try and follow along as someone leads it.”
Then the witches headed through town to see what activities were going on in the Cauldron Crawl in downtown businesses. They estimated about 40 people participated in the dance this year. Bewitching Peddlers came into Marshall, too, for Halloween and brought an estimated 5,000 people to the events throughout the day.
The kids still had fun. “We had face painting and bounce houses, and activities for the kids like prizes for the costumes, a cake walk, and music. It’s fun party for the kids and it’s free,” said Thompson,
“We heard about a town north of Detroit that had skeletons that they decorated and put around town and we thought that sounded really fun and we actually contracted with that group to come for the first four years or something… to do our skeletons,” said Thompson. “We started doing totally by ourselves because they didn’t want to change the costumes.” How the skeleton gets dressed is between the sponsor and the tourism office.
Some of the sponsors really get involved with the creation of their skeleton. “One of the banks was excited for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to be together,” said Peterson. “We like to do something that’s fun for the kids, but something that is also fun for the adults. The kids may not get the ‘Christmas Vacation’ (skeletons) but the adults will, and the kids will just think it’s fun. But the kids will recognize a Minion or Hocus Pocus or Alien, and things like that.”
The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcie skeletons are at Marshall’s fountain on Michigan Avenue. “We keep them (the skeletons) within a radius of downtown, so it’s all walkable” said Peterson. “Even though we may have sponsors that are not located in town, their sign and logo will still be on sign saying they sponsored one.”
The ladies shared they have over 60 skeletons, giant spiders, other creepy creatures, and some skeletons are 8ft and others are 20 ft. Representatives at Drakes Batter Mix Company in Marshall were really excited about participating but didn’t know what they wanted to do. “So, I sent them a picture of our pumpkin head skeleton which is down here in south Kalamazoo and it’s like an inferno pumpkin head, kind of scary, kind of not, and he said, ‘That’s it. That’s the one I want,’” said Peterson.
Near the end of August business owners are notified about the availability of skeleton sponsorship. “Within 48 hours the majority of our sixty skeletons are sponsored,” said Peterson.
The money raised through the sponsorship has various uses. Thompson said, “Last year we spent most of our money replacing skeletons because they were looking really bad.” This year they bought new costumes, and they put a lot of money in the kick-off party to make it free for the community. “Anything that is leftover gets put into our Christmas pot to help raise money for the Christmas lights in town because they are expensive to maintain,” said Thompson.
From the feedback they have gotten, Thompson and Peterson agree that Skeleton Fest is the town’s favorite activity because its lasts all month long, is family friendly, and free.
