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Do you like vampires? 🧛
Halloween is just around the corner so, if you like all things spooky and supernatural, this one is for you… 1,369 people came together to break the record for the largest gathering of people dressed as vampires!
The spooky location chosen for this gathering, Whitby Abbey, is the very place that inspired the creation of Count Dracula. 🏰
English Heritage, a charity whose mission is to bring the amazing story of England to life, wanted to break this record to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Dracula’s publication.
🔎 Who is Count Dracula?
In case you didn’t know, Count Dracula is a legendary, centuries-old vampire, and the villain in a horror novel written by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. His story is one of the most popular horror stories of all time.
According to the book, Count Dracula was a rich and powerful nobleman who lived in his own castle in Transylvania (Central Europe), but came to England with an evil plan to dominate the world!
The record was broken in Whitby, Yorkshire on the 26th of May 2022, over a decade after the previous record holder, Ed Kuhlmann, achieved a gathering of 1,039 vampires in Virginia (USA) in 2011. 🧛♀️🧛
Did you even know vampire gatherings were a thing?!
It would certainly make for an interesting Halloween activity. 👀
If this story inspired you to dress up as a vampire for Halloween, take notes – this is what you’ll need:
This is the dress code that the record participants had to follow in order to be counted as a real 'vampire', so you know it's the real deal!
In fact, if you thought participating in this record-breaking event was easy, think again.
Before entry into the event, there was a strict costume approval process for guests to make sure that everyone was dressed in the right outfit.
Being a real-life vampire is no piece of cake, you know! 🍰
After the costume approval process was over and everyone was accounted for, the official countdown was started by adjudicator Jack Brockbank.
Participants needed to stand together in the same place for five minutes in order to break the record! ⏲️
The event also featured music from local gothic-rock band Westenra 🎸and a performance of excerpts from Dracula by theatre group Time Will Tell. 🎭
"This event was really good fun and drew in people from everywhere to take part in what was a brilliant evening. We smashed the record seeing 1,369 Dracula’s coming through our doors!" - Mark Williamson, Site Manager at English Heritage
Congratulations to English Heritage for what is surely one of the spookiest Guinness World Records titles ever broken!
The charity hope to organize more special events like this one in the future… we can’t wait to see what they come up with next. 😉