THE HAUNTED RUNWAY X ARTS IN THE DARK
Goodwill Greater Milwaukee & Chicago • Community Activation • 2025
More Than a Parade
Turning a community event into a participatory experience built for creativity, connection and content.
The Project
Arts in the Dark brings together artists, organizations and communities for a nighttime Halloween parade through downtown Chicago. For Goodwill, the opportunity was bigger than simply showing up—it was a chance to connect thrifting, creativity and self-expression with an audience already celebrating all three.
Haunted Runway turned that presence into a participatory activation, inviting the community to show off thrifted Halloween looks while creating an experience designed to live both on the parade route and across social.
My Role
Creative Strategy
Activation Planning
Campaign Messaging
Social Content Strategy
Community Engagement
Content Capture Planning
External Partner Management
More Than a Parade
Showing up at a major community event wasn't enough. The opportunity was to give people a reason to interact with Goodwill—and to make that interaction feel natural to the event itself.
Halloween, thrift and personal style already have plenty in common: creativity, transformation and making something memorable from what you can find. Haunted Runway gave that connection somewhere to happen.
Building the Activation
Participation Over Promotion
Built the experience around something attendees could do, giving the community an active role rather than making Goodwill's presence purely informational or promotional.
Thrift As Creative Fuel
Connected Goodwill naturally to Halloween through transformation, personal style and the creativity of building something unexpected from secondhand finds.
IRL → SOCIAL
Planned the activation with content in mind, creating opportunities to capture costumes, participation and personality that could extend the experience beyond parade night.
Behind the Activation
The parade itself was only one piece of the work. Behind the activation was a much bigger ecosystem of partner and vendor coordination, creative briefs, production tasks, signage, scripting, web and blog copy, social planning and plenty of tiny details that had to come together before anyone stepped onto State Street. I also sourced and brought in external partners and talent—including Hip Hop ConnXion, Suave and Ray—and helped translate the larger activation concept into clear direction for each contributor.
And Then Chicago Took the Runway
Once the activation was live, the community became the content—bringing their own style, creativity and personality to the experience.
Arts in the Dark intentionally keeps the spotlight on Chicago's creative community rather than its corporate sponsors. That meant our presence needed to feel like part of the experience—not an advertisement dropped into the middle of it. We kept the branding intentionally understated and focused our content on capturing the creativity, participation and energy surrounding Haunted Runway.
Showing Up Without Taking Over
What Came Out of It
447
New Social Followers During Contest Period*
5.26%
Follow-Up Email CTR
Follower growth reflects the full contest period and may include growth driven by other communications.
Earned + Owned Reach
Block Club Chicago coverage generated 220 clicks to the contest page, while visits to Goodwill's social channels doubled the day its newsletter was delivered. In-store signage extended contest promotion across Illinois locations.
545
Community Votes
93K
Block Club Chicago Newsletter Audience
61K+
Organic Social Reach
5,873
Contest Page Views
What I Took With Me
The strongest community activations don't ask people to watch a brand do something. They give people a reason to become part of it.
When the experience makes sense for the audience, the event and the brand, participation becomes the story—and the content follows naturally.