Nerd Nite October 2025

(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) Nite of the Nerds (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

• Sat. October 11th

• doors 4:30 & show 5-7pm

• The Lincoln Lodge Mainstage

The air is crisp, the president is a criminal, and we have a delightfully creepy show for you! We’re talking haunted houses, ravanging hordes of slavering creatures, the very end of humanity. What a nice change from your typically peaceful Saturday night in Chicago!!

Three spine-tingling, cerebrum-tickling talks:

The call is coming from inside YOU! What haunted house films tell us about ourselves

by Sarah Lamparelli

From crumbling nuclear families of the 70s and 80s to the more personal hauntings of today, explore what our obsession with haunted houses say about the anxieties of our times. Haunted house films have long been a mainstay of the horror genre, but are they telling a story that has nothing to do with ghosts?

• Sarah Lamparelli is a local librarian, writer, and all around horror nerd. When she’s not slinging books down at the public library, she can often be found chasing tiny monsters (children) around her own sadly un-haunted house. Her short fiction can be found in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fourteen.

Bite Club: Vampires, Zombies, and the Original Story that Went Viral

by Anna Czupryna

Long before hashtags or cat videos, one infection truly went viral, spreading terror, shaping public health, and driving myths of vampires and zombies long before Netflix and TikTok. Join Anna Czupryna, PhD, for a spine-tingling tour of modern monster hunting: from tracking outbreaks to collecting heads and faces that might just raise the hair on the back of your neck (and maybe inspire you to check you dog’s vaccination record).

• Anna Czupryna, PhD, is a One Health specialist and rabies researcher who has spent more than a decade chasing the very real monster of rabies. She spent years at the University of Glasgow tracking rabies in the wild and more recently worked with the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and UNICEF to stop the virus from haunting us. Her career has taken her from mass dog vaccination campaigns to testing facial recognition apps for dogs, and yes, sometimes cutting off head (all in the name of science... usually). When not warding off nightmares, Anna can be found hiking with her rescue dog, selling closets (for hiding skeletons of course) with her boyfriend, and indulging in some properly trashy novels.

Plus one mystery talk to end it all announcement here and at chicago.nerdnite.com a little closer to the event.

Don’t be too late! Seating is limiited at the Lincoln Lodge! Tickets not redeemed 30 minutes after the show begins may mean someone else takes your seat. (In which case, refunds available upon request, naturally. We’re nerds, not monsters.)

What is Nerd Nite?

It’s Empricial Entertainment. It’s the Discovery Channel live, in a very Chicago bar. It’s a quarterly show of three short (10-15 min) factual, irreverent presentations on almost anything from pupae-slurping Dracula ants to the ethics of textiles, from the art of breadmaking to the history/science of just about anything in the world.

Want to Share Your Nerddom?

Got a burning desire to educate the masses about your obscure obsession? Know someone who needs a gentle push into the spotlight? Just like a cozy motel chain, we’ll leave port 22 open for ya. Reach out and claim your spot in Nerd Nite Chicago history!

Be there and be square