In Blog # 258 I Talked about don’t take moments for granted. In this blog I want to talk about Zalloween Events over the years.

Back in 2008 Two Ten approached me to have Zappos sponsor a Golf tournament in Southern California in which the proceeds would go to Shoe people in need.  I approached Tony and Fred, and they thought it would be a great idea. A group of us went down there and had a great time. There were banners letting everyone know we were one of the main sponsors of the tournament. When we got back Fred thought it would be an even better idea if we did our own tournament in Vegas. So next year “Zalloween” was born. Zappos was famous for putting the “Z” in front of words like  hotdogs to make it “Zotdogs” happy to make it “Zappy” and so on, so “Zalloween” made perfect sense to all of us.

I wasn’t involved in the down and dirty planning of the event, but I was the voice to Two Ten at the time, so I communicated to them what we were planning. From there the “Zalloween” event squad took over. Each of the Merch team had goals to hit to contribute to Two Ten. We asked our vendors to sponsor a hole and it would place a foursome in the tournament by doing so. They would also have a hole with thier name on it as a sponsor. We ended up raising a decent amount of money for Two Ten this year.

The event would be held at Bears Best and people were to dress in their “Halloween”or “Zalloween” costumes while they golfed. Each hole was sponsored by a vendor as I said earlier and there were activities and drinking games at each hole. An example of an activity would be to be spun around several times then hit the ball. Some holes were just drinking games or beer pong. And we did this for 18 holes!

Needless to say by the end of the tournament people were flat out wasted. There were rumors of a few golf carts being dunked and a few injuries as well. Tony was in rare form driving a golf cart around and having a shot with the vendors at the holes. I also think this was the first and last time Bears Best let us do the event there.

Scott is famous for his costumes. Specifically the make-up. He had a friend that was an amazing make-up artist and she would hook him up each year. Of course, this being the first Zalloween he wasn’t famous yet but his makeup was amazing. Each year he would try to outdo the last years attempt. Always did an amazing job. Matt, who would eventually take over on the planning of the events years later, dressed in a vintage golf attire. He too was always someone to always watch, Zalloween was always a good time. Then there’s Tom Austin and Jerry the Mayor. Jerry had his banana thing going on which would show up  from time to time and Tom was a hippy (I think). Most of all this was hearsay because sadly I had to represent Zappos at a golf tournament in China in which we were a sponsor there too. The reason why I have such a great memory on all this stuff is I usually collect tons of pictures. I had some from this year but i’ll have more to share in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, back in China, Charles and I were representing Zappos at the Face tournament in between our factory trips we did every 6 weeks. It was quite the event as well except no costumes. I was sad I missed the first one but there were lots of pictures and chatter to fill us in. Linda went with us on this trip and while we were working in the factories she went shopping and had a massage from a blind masseuse. It was quite the experience for her. She also got to see some “cupping” performed on someone close by. Cupping is a form of alternative medicine in which suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups. It’s a very controversial therapy and the theory is that it removes toxins from the body. The American Cancer Society  went as far as making a statement to the effect that available scientific evidence does not support claims that cupping has any health benefits.

Charles and I found some great Men’s shoes sources and were excited for the deliveries. We worked the day at the factory and laid out our buys by deliveries. The next day we would travel to the city in which the tournament would be held. 

We woke up bright and early and had an amazing breakfast at the cafe downstairs. They had just about everything you could want there for breakfast. I went to the omelet station where they made the omelet in front of you. We arrived at the tournament and it was Richard, Charles, Myself, Linda and Megan. They let us have a five-some since we were a sponsor. They started the tournament off by a row of golfers driving the balls in front of them and the balls exploding with pink and blue clouds, It was pretty cool. It was really humid so our shirts were quickly getting wetter by the minute. We had our own caddies which was nice and as we drove I noticed many signs near the bushes that said “Beware of the snake”. I let the bushes keep my stray balls this tournament. We ended the evening with a fabulous dinner and massages. It was such a great time.

I’ll write and share some more pics and stories of our events throughout this month since I have so many many. I even put a book together one year since I have so many and still have it today. I’ll end this blog with a shameless link to my etsy site, just click on the blue etsy