University of North Florida Healthy Osprey hosted its annual Swoopocalyspe event on Oct. 29, with over 50 student racers who walked the UNF Nature Trails, which were decorated for Halloween and full of hidden student scare actors.
Swoopocalypse is a student run event where once a year students can dress up and act or walk through a haunted path on UNF Nature Trails.
In order to participate, racers and scare actors had to be a current UNF student with an active Osprey1Card and sign up in advance. Students were not allowed to bring non-UNF student guests with them to this event.
Before the race began, many racers came dressed in Halloween costumes while others wore old clothing doused in fake blood provided by the UNF Department of Recreation and Wellness. RecWell also provided Halloween makeup for students to paint their bodies and faces with.
Scare actors got to the trails promptly at 5 p.m. to touch up their looks and add makeup and fake blood. At 5:30 p.m., the racers started showing up and the scare actors had 20 minutes to hide with a peer to spook the racers.
Racers began walking and running the trails at 5:50 p.m.
Throughout the trail were flickering lights, props, noise boxes, pitch black tunnels and surely, the scare actors.
Some students, including Brianna Arsenault and Taylor Jerris, had never been on the trails before and were inspired to walk through them during this themed event.
“I’m really excited, and don’t know what to expect; I’ve never done this before,” Arsenault said. “I’m looking to just have a good time with my friend Taylor and we both thought it would be something really fun to do to get involved on campus.”
The scare actors all had different strategies implemented for how they were going to spook the racers as they walked near their scare spot. Student and scare actor, Ellie Wurtus wore a zombie outfit.
“I just aimed for something scary. My plan is to try to hide behind a tree and then run at the racers as they pass by,” Wurtus said.
There are rules to Swoopocalypse: Scare actors and racers cannot place hands on one another and no one can wear a mask covering their face.
Scare actors used a popular strategy of hiding in different spots where racers could not see them and jumped out at them as they passed through.
At the end of the race, both scare actors and racers received a free Swoopocalypse t-shirt and a goodie bag of candies for participating.
“I was really looking forward to this t-shirt and I decided to come here to hang out with a friend and I really wanted to just be more involved in on-campus activities,” Jerris said.
Swoopocalypse is held every year at the UNF Nature Trails. Students can sign up in October next fall to participate as a racer or scare actor in the 2025 Swoopocalypse.
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