Meet Mimi Chicotel of Sandusky Witches Walk

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mimi Chicotel.

Hi Mimi, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Sandusky Witches Walk started in 2009 as a grassroots pub crawl. Michelle Bertschl-Herold gathered a group of friends at James A. Bertsch Jeweler, everyone put on a pointed hat, and they walked downtown. There was no budget, no committee, no plan beyond having a good night.

By 2011 it had outgrown “a good night.” The group decided that if hundreds of people were going to show up in costume anyway, the walk should raise money while it did. The first beneficiary was the Lung Cancer Association, and that choice set the direction for everything after it. The event stopped being a party that happened to be charitable and became a charity that happened to be a very good party.

The growth after that was steady and then sudden. What had been a few hundred locals became thousands of visitors. In 2022 we formally established as a 501(c)(3) so the fundraising could be structured, transparent, and reinvested where it belonged. Today the Walk draws more than 15,000 attendees from 26 states, five countries, and 83 Ohio cities. We hold two Guinness World Records and a USA Today designation as a Best Halloween Festival. Sandusky, Halloween Capital of Ohio, is on the map for something other than roller coasters.

What I am proudest of is not the numbers. It is what the numbers buy. A ferry trip to Kelleys Island for kids who had never been on a boat. A Guardians game for seniors who had not had a day out in years. Two thousand after-school meals. Support for CASA of Erie County, which serves 97 children with 18 volunteers. The Erie County Senior Center. Kiwanis Terrific Kids. Every ticket sold turns into something a neighbor can point to.

2026 is our 15th anniversary. The main event is October 17 at Jackson Street Pier, with a free Witchy Market opening at 11 AM and about 80 vendors, a community parade stepping off at 4 PM from Columbus Avenue and Washington Row, and a VIP program that includes Patti Negri, a Stevie Nicks tribute, Broadway musical comedy, and the Guinness World Record Witches’ Dance. Little Witches Walk follows on October 24 for the families.

The through line from 2009 to now is the same: people want a reason to be in the street together. Give them one, add a little magic, and they will show up for each other. That is the whole model. Everything else is logistics.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, and I would not trust anyone who told you otherwise.

The hardest stretch came when the original event nearly ended. What began in 2009 as 9 friends in pointed hats at James A. Bertsch Jeweler had grown past what an informal group could carry. There was no legal structure, no trademark, no protection for the name, and no clear way to hand it to the next person. It could have simply stopped. Instead we rebuilt it from the ashes of its former self into a trademarked 501(c)(3) with a real board, real books, and a real mission. That decision saved the Walk, but it meant a year of paperwork, legal filings, and hard conversations instead of costumes and confetti.

Growth has been its own kind of problem. An event that fits comfortably on a sidewalk at 300 people becomes a public safety question at 15,000. Every year we have had to solve things a bar crawl never has to think about: police coverage, EMS, sanitation, street closures, noise waivers, canopy weights at the waterfront, insurance. In 2023 downtown construction cut straight through our route, and rather than cancel we ran seven shuttle stops with hop-on, hop-off buses so participants could still reach the businesses that depend on that night. You learn to plan for the version of the day where nothing cooperates.

Weather on Lake Erie in October is a permanent negotiation. So is money. We are a charity, which means the event has to fund itself, pay its vendors, and still produce a check for the community at the end. Sponsorship is never guaranteed, and a single sponsor’s change of circumstances can open a gap that has to be closed in weeks. Most years someone is making calls in September that they were hoping not to make.

Then there is the invisible work of legitimacy. Setting Guinness World Records in 2025, 970 people in the costume contest and 727 in the Witches’ Dance, took 3,600 feet of bike racks, an adjudicator from New York, a contained counting area, and months of documentation. The gathering itself lasted about fifteen minutes. The preparation took eleven months.

That ratio is exactly what we set out to change this year. For most of its life the Walk followed one shape: everyone assembled, we made history in a quarter of an hour, and then we sent thousands of witches off to the bars and restaurants to make their own evening. It worked, and downtown loved it, but it asked visitors to drive hours for fifteen minutes of programming and then figure out the rest themselves. For the 15th anniversary we rebuilt it as a full day. The Witchy Market opens at 11 AM with roughly 80 vendors, the community parade steps off at 4 PM, and the main event carries five straight hours of live entertainment on the pier. Rebuilding the model in one season meant booking national talent, securing the waterfront, expanding permits and safety plans, and convincing longtime participants that a bigger event would not cost them the tradition they loved. That last part is the real work.

What carried us through all of it is written into our Opening Spell: “The Witches’ Walk shall never die!” We have treated that less as a joke and more as an operating instruction.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Sandusky Witches Walk?
Sandusky Witches Walk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that produces the largest witch gathering in the world, and it exists to move money into Erie County.

What we do is simple to describe and complicated to run. Once a year, thousands of people in pointed hats take over downtown Sandusky, Halloween Capital of Ohio, and the proceeds fund youth, seniors, education, foster children, recreation, and community programs. Our support flows through partners including the Kiwanis Club, City of Sandusky Recreation, Sandusky Schools, Shoreline Pride, CASA, and The Center. In practical terms, that has meant a Kelleys Island ferry trip for kids who had never been on a boat, a Guardians game for seniors, two thousand after-school meals, and Meals on Wheels deliveries. A kid graduates. A senior finds a friend. A foster child finds a voice. That is the whole business model.

What sets us apart is that we are not a themed party with a donation attached. We are a charity that happens to throw the best night of the year, and the order of those priorities shows up in everything: the board, the books, the trademark protecting the name, the vendor standards, the safety planning.

Brand-wise, I am proudest of two things. First, the records. We hold two Guinness World Records, the World’s Largest Witch Costume Contest with 970 participants and the World’s Largest Group of Witches Dancing the Witch Dance with 727, both certified on site by an adjudicator. Second, the reach. More than 15,000 downtown visitors from five countries, 26 states, and 83 cities, and USA Today has named us a Best Halloween Festival. For two consecutive years we have produced one of Erie County’s highest-visit days. A town of 25,000 put itself on an international map with brooms and volunteers.

The 15th anniversary is also the year we stopped being a fifteen-minute gathering. The participant experience now runs a full day: an opening ceremony and the signature Witches Dance, five hours of live entertainment, a Stevie Nicks tribute, Tim Murray’s comedy musical, Patti Negri doing live readings and practical magic, a diva dance party, and an owl and pony experience that funds a pony’s surgery. There is $5,000 in raffle prizes across two $2,500 drawings and $1,500 in costume prizes across three $500 contests.

It is built to be good for local, too. Eighty vendors fill the Witchy Market. Thirty participating locations across town include the library, Share and Care, and the Humane Society. The Cauldron Circuit passport sends visitors through downtown merchants all month long, so people shop, dine, and explore well beyond one Saturday.

Saturday, October 17, 2026, Jackson Street Pier, Sandusky, Ohio. Participate, shop local, help the magic continue. The Witchy Market opens at 11 AM and is free. The community parade steps off at 4 PM from Columbus Avenue and Washington Row and is free. VIP is $45 and is the only ticket sold that day.

More than a ticket. A community investment. Details at sanduskywitcheswalk.com or 419-357-1979.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Start smaller than you think you should, and protect the thing before it gets big.

The mistake I see most often is the opposite of what people expect. New organizers over-plan the event and under-plan the structure. They spend six months on the lineup and zero minutes on who legally owns the name. We learned that the hard way. The Walk ran for years on goodwill and group texts, and when it got big enough to matter, there was nothing underneath it. No entity, no trademark, no board, no way to hand it to the next person. An event can die of its own success. Set up the boring parts early, when it is cheap and nobody is fighting over anything.

Second, get the money question straight from day one. Decide whether you are a business, a charity, or a party, and then act like it in writing. If you say you are raising money for the community, every decision has to survive that sentence. Name your beneficiaries publicly. Report what you gave. People will forgive a rained-out afternoon. They will not forgive vagueness about where the money went.

Third, your event is not yours alone. The bars, the shops, the police department, the sanitation crew, the city manager, the volunteer who has parked cars for eleven years. All of them own a piece of it. Go tell them your plans before you announce them, not after. Every genuinely hard year we have had got easier because someone in that group picked up the phone for us.

What I wish I had known: that the work is almost entirely invisible. Eleven months of permits, insurance, noise waivers, vendor contracts, and canopy weight requirements produce one day that looks effortless. If you need visible credit to stay motivated, this will grind you down. Fall in love with the logistics or find a different calling.

And the last one, which took me longest. You cannot do it alone, and the attempt is not noble, it is a single point of failure. Build the bench. Write things down so the next person can run it without you. The measure of whether you built something real is whether it survives your absence.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sanduskywitcheswalk.com
• Instagram: @sanduskywitcheswalk
• Facebook: @sanduskywitcheswalk