A sea of red-and-green costumes filled Bienville Square in downtown Mobile on a Friday night in December 2014, as more than a thousand people crowded together in an ambitious bid to be crowned the world’s largest gathering of elves. In the end, the crowd came up short of the official Guinness World Record, but organizers walked away thrilled and already talking about next year.
The event, dubbed “Elfapalooza,” drew an unofficial tally of 1,202 costumed elves. That figure cleared the mark of 1,200 that had stood as the record when planning first began, but it fell shy of the 1,762 elves that students in Bangkok, Thailand, had assembled just weeks earlier in late November.
“Hey, we didn’t get the overall record, but we beat the one that was tops when we planned the whole shebang,” organizers said as the count was announced. The near miss did little to dampen the mood in the square, where a towering inflatable Santa Claus danced beside a performance stage.
Elfapalooza was tied to “ElfWalk,” a holiday twist on the monthly LoDa ArtWalk that turns the Lower Dauphin Street district into an open-air gallery and street festival. The elf gathering served as a showcase for the Arts in Action program run through the local school system, spotlighting student talent from across the area.
“I’m excited,” said Johnny Weaver, a teacher at Old Shell Road Magnet School who helped organize the elf turnout. “But we have to congratulate the students in Bangkok for their efforts. That’ll give us something to shoot for next year.”
For some of the young participants, the appeal was as much about the record book itself as the costumes. “It’s really cool, because I love the Guinness World Record books and it would be really cool to actually be in it,” said Sydney Upchurch, a musical theater student who went all in on her outfit, complete with a beard.
Upchurch and her classmates from Old Shell Road Magnet School were among several student groups that performed during the evening. Students from Alma Bryant High School and the ensemble Tuba Christmas also took the stage before the crowd wrapped up with a “March of Elves” procession through downtown and additional performances scattered across the ArtWalk district.
To keep the count credible, organizers set up a turnstile at a corner of Bienville Square, enlisted several independent counters and trained a half-dozen video cameras on the crowd so the numbers could be submitted to Guinness for verification.
Eric Browne, the Arts in Action coordinator who dreamed up the event alongside Weaver and others, said he hoped the gathering would become a fixture on the city’s holiday calendar. “I hope this turns into a tradition,” he said. “I’m really excited. We actually had a few extra performers this year. They’re really representing our school system very well as far as fine arts go.”