Water-pistol Guinness record on line

3,807 — that’s how many people took aim and fired Saturday during the city’s attempt at breaking the Guinness World Record for largest water-pistol fight.

After the mass soaking, it’s now a waiting game to see if it’s official.

The Guinness World Records office confirmed it has received a claim for Maricopa’s attempt, but the city’s isn’t the only one.

Sara Wilcox, public relations and marketing executive with Guinness World Records, said so far this year there are nine other claims for the record and last year there were 16.

Wilcox said the majority of “mass participation” records are attempted by churches, schools or communities.  

The idea to have Maricopa attempt to break the record at this year’s Great American Barbecue came to Will Dunn, one of the event organizers, in a flash of insight.

“One of our assistants at work was talking about how to get people involved, and it was one of those ‘light bulb going off’ kind of moments,” said Dunn, who along with his wife Cindy run the Action Alliance Network, the group hired to organize the city’s signature events.

A long and complex process came next.

First, Dunn went to the Guinness website to see if the record would be realistically breakable by the city.

He found two results.

The one on the official website of the Guinness World Records said the record was broken in 2007 with 2,671 people facing off in Valladolid, Spain during a celebration for the patron of the city.

The other result he found on YouTube, in which more than 3,477 people celebrated the annual water festival/New Year’s celebration in Thailand by engaging in a water-pistol battle.

“And I thought, ‘Oh, we can beat that,’” Dunn said.

However that water fight is not listed on the Guinness website, indicating it may not be officially recognized by the organization.

Dunn, however, put in five weeks of effort into ensure that doesn’t happen to Maricopa.

Once he found the two results, he decided to play it safe and shoot for breaking the higher record set by Thailand.

That began a mountain of paperwork.

The Guinness organization is based in England and has strict and exacting rules for official record-breaking.

First, applicants must submit a proposal. They receive a claim number and, after four to six weeks, an email notifying the applicant whether the proposal was accepted, rejected or should be re-submitted under a different category because it’s too similar to one that already exists.

That part (consisting of a 33-page application form) proved to be a bit of nail-biter.

Dunn knew he was cutting it close. As the Fourth of July crept closer there was no word from the organization.

Then, July 3, Dunn received the acceptance of his proposal, an official “Record Breaker Pack” and guidelines, all equally daunting in scope.
“It’s unbelievable what you all have to do; they want video documentation and photographs and everything,” Dunn said.

There was a simpler, but more costly, option: An official judge could come to the event and call it, but that would cost more than $5,000 and the city also would have to pay for a hotel room, airfare and expenses.

So, the group set about organizing a registration/counting system (participants were given wristbands and counted on the way to the event and while exiting it), making sure everyone had a “weapon” (the organization purchased 5,000 mini squirt guns to distribute to attendees) and filling out reams of paperwork.

Then July 4 came and it rained and kept raining until city officials were forced to move the event to Saturday.

“Our phone was ringing off the hook,” Dunn said. “Everyone was asking, ‘What happened, we were coming for the squirt-gun fight.’”

People showed up en masse Saturday, crowding tables to get their wristbands and gathering around water-filled buckets to load their weapons and, more often than not, engage in a few “practice” battles with friends and family.

Plenty showed up with their own array of guns, ranging from hand-held pistols to pump-action Super Soakers with double water tanks.

“I have a bunch of little Marines with me,” said Thomas Velasquez, a six-year resident, referring to the troupe of children, ranging in age from 2 to 12 with him.

“And one Army medic, my wife, Sonya,” he said.

***ADVERTISEMENT***He said the group’s planned tactic for the big fight was to use “plenty of cold water,” much of which the group was already using on each other and the people around them.

“People get upset but then they realize it’s cold water,” Velasquez said.

For David Vargas’ family, the weaponry of choice was a bit more of an impromptu decision.

“We stopped at Walmart on the way over,” Vargas said, referring to himself, his friend and his two children.

Some, like Vargases, were intent on using the battle as an excuse to engage friends or family.

But others, like Kenny Rudolph, who was drenched by entire bucket of water, were intent on engaging strangers.

Rudolph, who said “I could throw a rock to my house” from the park, came with his 12-year-old son Kenny and 5-year-old daughter Alex.
“We’ll just shoot as many strangers as possible and encourage the water fight,” Rudolph said.

Which, as it turned out, may have worked.

But it won’t be official until Dunn submits each piece of evidence — individually marked with the claim number — in an envelope to the Guinness people.

After that, it’s a four-to-six-week wait until Maricopa finds out if it broke the world record for the largest water pistol fight.