A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD BREAKING EVENT

Statesville, North Carolina, is in the process of breaking the Guiness Book of World Record Music Marathon event right now this very minute. And, yep, we joined in the fun this morning. Here's how it works. As of January 5, 2009, at 5:30 a.m. the longest concert by multiple artists was 216 hours long, held in Balatonfued, Hungary. Well, Statesville is planning on beating that world record by holding a two-week long concert (240 hours) of multiple artists performing 24/7 round the clock right here in North Carolina. This has never happened in the United States before now!

There's two stages set up, performers on stage 1 are perfoming while stage 2 is being set up for the next performers, and so on and so forth, so there's no lag time between playing, singing, et cetera. Over 720 performers have already signed up to fill the slots. Greg and Laci played this morning from 9:00-10:30 a.m. (Fri, March 20).

Here they are checking in.



Now, we didn't know it this morning, but when we arrived we found out that Laci would be the youngest player to perform in this event, and the youngest to help break the world record (out of over 720 participants). So she and her daddy were interviewed by a local radio station, WSIC, in Statesville who is covering the two-week long event.




Stage managers help them to get set up.


The way they have it set up, everyone performs for one hour, but the schedule got a little messed up this morning so Greg ended up playing for an hour and a half. And he did a great job! They both did. And it was so much fun.




Okay, sorry, didn't mean to make you dizzy on that one! Just another one of my many talents, videoing!!!

And then they sign their names on the Guiness Wall of Musicians.


Janet Harriman is also helping to coordinate this event. She's a freelance writer and website designer. She will be coordinating with a local television station to set up a live web cam on Statesville's website. She interviewed Laci for the Web cam. It will take her a few days to get it set up but you can click on the web address mentioned below to view some of the music marathon and some interviews. Check out her little recorder. She's been videoing all day with this little dingamajiger. I need one of those!


United Way of Statesville is putting on this event, not only to break the world record, but it's also a fundraiser to help those in the community who have lost jobs and homes. The concerts are free to attend but donations are accepted and appreciated. All proceeds will go to help the community. The concert is being held at Signal Hill Mall in Statesville and they are looking to fill a few more spots, so if you would like to help make history, log on to www.statesvilleworldrecord.org for more information. They are looking for church choirs and bands, school bands, any type of musician that can play or sing. It is a family event and TV and radio media will be present at different times throughout the event so all lyrics must be family-friendly. No foul language, vulgarity or the like. But I'm sure none of you do such things :)

So go make history, and help a good cause!!