Night at the living Zoo

On Friday the 30th of November I was volunteering at a Halloween event at the National Zoo called "Night at the living Zoo". This was the Zoo's annual adult only Halloween Party from 6PM till 10PM. The event is almost like a one-night festival with DJ's, best-costume-contest, stilt-walkers, fire-twirlers, actors dressed up as zombies and much more. The area of the Zoo where the event was held was decorated very cool with all kinds of Halloween decorations. The event had several different beer, wine and food trucks.

My last-minute cat "costume" - volunteers had to dress up

I was volunteering with a group from The International Student House of Washington DC where i live. We were assigned to handle ID-checking and tickets. I was checking tickets, which was a rather simple task since all we had to do was scan barcodes with a scanning device and hand out wristbands, and drink tickets for VIP guests. The thing I remember most about my checking-tickets-experience? It was so cold! But, it was super fun seeing all the guests show up in their costumes. There were some really amazingly good ones in between. Everyone was in a good mood - maybe this had something to do with the amounts of alcohol people had consumed prior the event, by anyway, everyone was in a good mood which made my job easier. There never was a long line or any impatient guest and the entire process of getting people through the entrance ran smoothly. This was very well planned and executed check-in process.

Fire!

Around 9PM the flow of new guests was slowing down, so my ticket-checking-buddy and I were send to help out at one of the beer trucks - people were getting thirsty! The beer truck seemed to be having a little trouble keeping up with the thirsty guests. I think the biggest problem in this spot was that no one was really in charge - or at least would not admit if they were. The volunteers seemed very confused and the guests received very inconsistent and stressed service. This might be due to the fact that only volunteers were working here and no real staff seemed to be in charge of getting extra cups when we ran out or getting the kegs changed.
 

The dancefloor

However, everything worked out in the end, and all guests got their beers. The beverage trucks stopped selling alcohol around 9.30, which gave us a little time to walk around and see all the activities on site. We meet up with some of roommates, who where in charge of the free water and soda station. The free water was a really good initiative, since people were drinking heavily and probably did not remember to get some water as well.

Overall a pretty well planned event, maybe with minor staffing issues.

Zombie actor and his friend