City Spectacular

The Laya Healthcare City Spectacular (formerly Street Performance World Championship) is an annual competition for the best street performers in the world. Since its 2006 inaugural year, it is held at Cork and Dublin in Ireland in mid-June. The competition is free to attend and runs for three days.^[1] The Competition has grown to become a hugely celebrated event for the people of Dublin City and Cork City. Families from all over Ireland attend the event every year for its shocking death defying performers, balloon artists, food venders and art installations. The festival is run entirely by volunteers for the people of Ireland, performers from all over the world travel to Ireland to compete for the now coveted title of The Laya Healthcare Street Performance World Champion.

There are no contact details for the organizers anywhere. Laya Healthcare came on as title sponsor in 2012.

World Record Attempts

In 2011 the event went through some unexpected changes when its main sponsor terminated their contract leaving the festival organisers with nowhere near the funding needed to run the event. To raise the money needed the organisers decided on a World Record Attempt and set off to gather the worlds largest collection of real life Where's Wally's . The money needed for the event would be raised through costume sales from stalls all over the park with a large percentage of the money raised going to Africa Aware. Over many weeks prior to the event there were various promotions for the world record attempt including a flash mob in the Dublin City Centre and news paper publications along with a huge amount of networking on Facebook and Twitter. On the weekend of June 18 and 19 the world Record was broken outside Merrion Square in Dublin City with a staggering amount of "Wally's" big and small gathered on Merrion Square West. The same record was attempted in both Cork City and Portlaoise on June 12 but neither managed to accumulate the same numbers as their Dublin counterparts.

^[2]

Organized by Mark Duckenfield and Conor McCarthy,^[3] who started Emergent Events to organize this festival.^[3] Starting with an initial crowd of over 26,000 in 2006,^[4] and 40,000 in 2007,^[3] the growing crowds can consider this a runaway success.^[3]

Winners

2006: Space Cowboy (Australian Circus and Freak show performer) ^[3]
2007: Space Cowboy (Australian Circus and Freak show performer) ^[3]
2008: English Gents (2nd Space Cowboy, 3rd Beautiful Stu)
2009: Usa Breakdancers
2010: Jack Wise
2011: Space Cowboy (Australian Circus and Freak show performer) ^[3]

References

^ Conroy, Matthew R.; Donovan, Molly; Dalton, Kyle (2007). Let's Go: Ireland (13th ed.). Macmillan. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-312-37456-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ http://www.mylittleempire.ie/index.php/2011/06/21/wheres-wally-world-record-attempt-dublin-viral-video-of-the-week/
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "Where the streets have no limits". The Irish Times. 2008-06-13.
^ Davenport, Fionn; O'Carroll, Oda (2007). Dublin encounter. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-74059-829-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[1] Conroy, Matthew R.; Donovan, Molly; Dalton, Kyle (2007). Let's Go: Ireland (13th ed.). Macmillan. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-312-37456-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] ttp://www.mylittleempire.ie/index.php/2011/06/21/wheres-wally-world-record-attempt-dublin-viral-video-of-the-week/

[Limits-3] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "Where the streets have no limits". The Irish Times. 2008-06-13.

[4] Davenport, Fionn; O'Carroll, Oda (2007). Dublin encounter. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-74059-829-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]