Yarmouth narrowly fails in Where's Wally? world record bid
Emily DennisGreat Yarmouth lost out again in its bid to set a new world record for the largest number of people dressed as the cartoon character Wally in one place.Emily Dennis
Great Yarmouth lost out again in its bid to set a new world record for the largest number of people dressed as the cartoon character Wally in one place.
There was disappointment after it was revealed that the town was just 123 people short of beating the current record held by New York of 1,052. A final count of registrations revealed that 930 people had dressed up as the cartoon character.
But despite the overcast conditions, the rain held off and there was a carnival atmosphere in the Market Place as people of all ages danced to music dressed in their red and white Wally costumes.
It was the town's second attempt at making it into the Guinness Book of Records.
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Last October, profiteers were accused of wrecking the town's chances after it emerged that Wally costumes, which had been sold in advance for �5, had turned up on internet auction site Ebay for up to �30 ahead of the earlier bid.
Last year 901 people dressed up leaving organisers 152 short of the numbers needed to break the record.
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The event's head organiser Jonathan Newman, of the Great Yarmouth Town Centre Partnership, spoke of his disappointment and said he thought the town had done enough to make it into the record books.
'A lot of effort and a lot of work by a lot of people has gone into making this happen,' he said.
'It is disappointing obviously, but achieving the record or not we have still raised more than �1,000 for charity and the event itself has been fantastic, a real spectacle.'
Mr Newman said he did not think the town would try for the record a third time, but suggested it might look at alternatives.
'I think we have tried it twice, perhaps we will try something different next time,' added.
'There seems to be an appetite in Yarmouth for something like this. We will have to put our thinking hats on and see what we can come up with next time.'
