If someone were to look out onto Oscoda Beach on Aug. 1, they would have seen hundreds of merpeople sprawled across the sand during the first Pirates and Mermaids Festival.
The goal? Beat the Guiness World Record for largest gathering of people dressed as merpeople.
The festival was organized by local group Oscoda Citizens for Clean Water to bring attention and education to per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination in the Great Lakes. As a part of the festivities, the group had an official Guinness record specialist on hand to count the merpeople in attendance. In the end they beat the previous record by 43 people.
Anyone who wanted to be counted in the record had to be wearing a full mermaid tail and stay in place for five minutes as the count was completed.
Event organizer and OCCW board member Elyssa Steward told WCMU that people from across the entire community came out to help and participate in the event.
"There were all walks of life on that beach. The varsity football players from 30 years ago all came and brought their granddaughters and all had merman tails on," Steward said. "Seeing some of the legionnaires there, from the school, from my water aerobics class. It was just so magical."
Beating the record was no simple task, according to Steward. It involved intensive social media and advertising to pull it off.
"We were showing people what's in Oscoda, what they can do when they get there, what costume requirements are needed for Guinness World Book of Records," explained Steward. "So leading up to that moment I think I was working like at least ten hours a day on this event."
OCCW plans on hosting the event annually, even with the possibility of going for the pirate gathering record in a few years.
