Domino Day

Did you know the Dutch are not only famous for their weed, but for their dominos too?

Every year we have Domino Day here in the Netherlands, where a group of Dutch domino enthusiasts try to break the world record for the most amount of dominos toppled.  Usually their own record because they seem to be the best at it.

This year it was held in a city in Friesland called Leeuwarden and they toppled over 4 million dominos.  That’s amazing!

Here’s what they had to say about this year’s Domino Day…

Domino Day 2006 will be swinging and exciting. The central theme this year is Music in Motion. We tried our best to find unique ways to translate different types of music, from classical to disco, into a domino show. Nine genres of music will be presented to our viewers. Imagine domino representing Disco Fever, Classical music, Hip hop, Rock ‘n Roll and many more.

The dominoes will guide you through the music, focusing on different aspects of the genres. For instance cool dance moves, composers & artists, typical clothing and different music mediums. And yes, the dominoes will be playing musical instruments as well!

At the end of the show there will be even more excitement than last year! We won’t reveal it yet, but we have a very special ending planned.

Unfortunately I forgot all about Domino Day this year and strangely didn’t see any ads on TV to remind me, so I missed it.   I did find some videos on YouTube though.  I’m pretty sure the dudes that made it put their own music on the video because from what I gathered from the writeup there should have been different kinds of music and sounds from the toppling.

Not hard to tell I’m getting older though… As I looked through the photo gallery of the people seeing up the dominos, all I could think about was how buggered my back would be if I tried that.   Hell, I get on my hands and knees to scrub the floor and I can hardly stand up straight when I get up!

Here are the videos I found, not the greatest quality and doesn’t seem to have the entire show but it does have a lot of it and shows a lot of the bigger parts of it.   They are pretty long and have music playing so make sure your speakers are adjusted accordingly! :)

The Netherlands has broken their own world record for dominos almost every year since 1986 when they toppled 755,836 stones in Lisse, The Netherlands.

The exceptions were in 1999 when China & Japan beat the Dutch record with 2,751,518 dominos toppled. This was broken in 2000 again by the Dutch with 2,977,678 which was then broken again by China, Japan and South Korea with 3,407,535 later that year.

The Dutch regained their title in 2001 with 3,540,562 and have held it since.