I went to help count people, as this festival was going for breaking the Guinness record for the biggest ukulele ensemble.
I kinda thought they were gonna do it, and I was pretty excited for them. Alas, it did not happen.
They taped off squares in a courtyard, and we each got number. We were to all be in charge of 50 people in our square. I was square 26. (So, I would’ve had people #1300 – 1350 with me.) They needed 2,135 people to beat the record… They didn’t even get to my square.
So, basically, I just hung out. I answered some questions for some people as far as where to register. So, at least I did feel the tiniest bit helpful. Someone asked me about the official hashtag of the event. She was super into social media, and we didn’t have anything! I even checked the official sites tied to this event – and nothing. Oof.
I also met some more people from the high school diploma program with the CAS (creativity, athletics, and service) requirements. (I even ran into one of the same people from the Heart of the City 5k.)
After the failed world record attempt, I went to sign out and leave for my next event.
It was so interesting to me to see how the same event can be looked at with such different perspectives. When I was leaving, I thought of it as though we had failed. We wanted to break a record. We didn’t. End of sad story.
But as I was leaving, the very cheerful woman at the volunteer sign in/out asked, “why don’t you grab a ukulele and go play?”
It was actually exceptionally cool that they had ukuleles there that you could borrow. And the back of the event shirts had the finger patterns for the 4 different notes they used for a simple song. So even if you didn’t know how to play the ukulele at all, you could just look at the back of the shirt of the person in front of you, and jam on with the – while not world-record breaking big, still very large – ensemble.
The person at the volunteer booth seemed to think that was cool and exciting. And really, isn’t it? To be playing and instrument and sharing that experience with a bunch of strangers around you – all playing at the same time.
However, somewhat regrettably, I didn’t do it. I just went on my way to the next event that day.