Domino Day

Domino Day was a world record attempt for the highest number of toppling domino stones, organized from 1998-2009 by Endemol Netherlands. Together with Weijers Domino Productions of Robin Paul Weijers, also known as Mr. Domino, parties teamed up to set a new world record. The production was mainly organized at the WTC-Expo in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

The Subsequent Record Attempts

Date	Year	Theme	Location	Result	Fallen	Total	%
27 December	1986	KLM Domino World Record *	Lisse, Netherlands	Success	755,836	1,250,000	60.5
2 January	1988	Europe in Domino *	Rosmalen, Netherlands	Success	1,328,101	1,500,000	88.5
28 August	1998	Domino D-Day: Visionland	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	1,605,757	2,300,000	69.8
5 November	1999	Domino Day: Europa Zonder Grenzen (Europe Without Borders)	Zuidlaren, Netherlands	Success	2,472,480	2,500,000	98.9
31 December	1999	Team from China & Japan *	Beijing, China	Success	2,751,518	3,000,000	91.8
3 November	2000	Domino Day: Action - Reaction	Zuidlaren, Netherlands	Success	2,977,678	3,112,000	95.7
31 December	2000	Team from China & Japan & South Korea *	Beijing, China	Success	3,407,535	3,500,000	97.4
16 November	2001	Domino Day: Bridging the World	Maastricht, Netherlands	Success	3,540,562	3,750,000	94.4
15 November	2002	Domino Day: Expressions for Millions	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	3,847,295	4,000,000	96.2
12 November	2004	Domino Day: The Challenge	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	3,992,397	4,250,000	93.9
18 November	2005	Domino Day: Domino Theatre of Eternal Stories	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	4,002,136	4,321,000	92.6
17 November	2006	Domino Day: Music in Motion	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	4,079,381	4,400,000	92.7
16 November	2007	Domino Day: Falling into Life	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Failure	3,671,465	4,500,000	81.6
14 November	2008	Domino Day: Celebrating 10 years of Domino Day	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	4,345,027	4,500,000	96.6
13 November	2009	Domino Day: The World in Domino - The Show with the Flow	Leeuwarden, Netherlands	Success	4,491,863	4,800,000	93.6

* Not an official Domino Day.

Recurring elements

Builders' Challenge

Starting in 2004, each Domino Day has featured Builders' Challenges, with three challenges in 2004 and 2005, and four challenges starting in 2006. Builders are usually chosen in pairs for each Builder's Challenge. The chosen builders then have to complete vital parts of the setup while the dominoes are already toppling else, in order to allow another field of dominoes to topple. This usually takes the form of trying to bridge the gap(s) in an unfinished setup before the toppling dominoes reach it.

Builders Challenge results
Year	1	2	3	4
2004	Success	Failure	Failure	n/a
2005	Success	Failure	Success	n/a
2006	Failure	Failure	Failure	Success
2007	Failure	Success	Success	Failure
2008	Success	Failure	Success	Success
2009	Failure	Failure	Failure	Success

Slow Stones

Starting in 2006, a series of "Slow Stones" are placed just before the final Builders Challenge. Slow Stones are relatively large, transparent domino stones filled with colored powder, with each Slow Stone containing a different-colored powder. Upon reaching the first Slow Stone, its powder begins to drain (similar to an hourglass) until it becomes light enough to tip over, hitting the next Slow Stone to start its powder draining. The process takes approximately one minute per Slow Stone. The Slow Stones are used as an opportunity to cut to advertising, show highlights from earlier in the show, do interviews, etc. The builders of the last Builders Challenge are also selected during the Slow Stones, and the challenge itself starts after the last Slow Stone has fallen.

Past Domino Day editions

Domino Day 2005

Main article: Domino Day 2005 sparrow

During the preparations of Domino Day 2005 on 14 November, with only four days to go until event, a sparrow flew into the building and landed on several domino bricks, eventually causing 23,000 of them (out of 4 million) to fall. The sparrow was eventually shot, by hired exterminator. Outraged by shooting, animal rights group took court actions against the exterminator and the Domino day production company Endemol. Public prosecutors in The Hague opened an investigation and eventually issued a €200 fine to the exterminator.^[1]

Domino Day 2006

A new world record was set on 17 November on Domino Day. 4,079,381 stones were toppled out of the 4,400,000 that were set up. The first three builders' challenges failed so the success of the last challenge was crucial to setting the world record.

The design of the course took about a year and a team of 90 builders took around two months to build it.

Note: The theme: Music in Motion represents 9 different kinds of music: Rock n' Roll, Classical Music, Pop Star, Schlager, Roaring 20's, Flower Power, World Music, Hip Hop, and Disco Fever.

Another Note: The Builder's Challenges represent the history of the music players, which are: Record Player, Tape Player, CD Player, and MP3 player.

A 3rd Note: Each Builder's Challenge has a field with a number of dominoes with the number 4 At the beginning. The record player challenge field contains 400 dominoes, the tape player challenge has a field of 4,000 dominoes, the CD player challenge contains 40,000 dominoes, and the MP3 player challenge contains 400,000 dominoes.

Domino Day 2007

The theme of this year was 'Falling into Life'. A total of 4,500,000 stones were placed by 85 builders from 12 countries. Only 81.6% of the dominoes fell, resulting in a final count of 3,671,465.

Domino Day 2007 was held on 16 November and appeared to fail mostly because of the unsuccessful final challenge to create a bridge of dominoes on a revolving hammer/clock structure to link up with over 400,000 stones. However, it was later revealed that even if this area had fallen, the 2006 record would not have been broken. It was the first time that Domino Day failed to set a new record.

Domino Day 2008

On 14 November 2008 the team of Weijers Domino Productions tried to break the world record domino toppling. They did set up 4.5 million dominoes in the WTC Expo Center in Leeuwarden to try topping the previous record of 2 years ago, which was at 4,079,381 dominoes toppled.

'Celebrating 10 years of Domino Day - Breaking more World Records than ever' is the central theme of Domino Day 2008. Domino Day celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

Although one Builder Challenge failed, the record was broken with 4,345,027 dominoes toppled.^[2] Also, 9 additional world records were attempted and successfully broken. These additional world records were^[3]:

1. Longest domino spiral (200 m)
2. Highest domino climb (12 m)
3. Smallest domino stone (7 mm)
4. Largest domino stone (4.8 m)
5. Longest domino wall (16 m)
6. Largest domino structure (25,000 stones)
7. Fastest topple of 30 metres of domino stones (4.21 sec) (the sprinter Churandy Martina ran with the dominoes and achieved the time of 3.81 sec for the same distance)
8. Largest number of domino stones resting on a single domino (727 stones)
9. Largest rectangular level domino field (1 million stones)
10. Most fallen dominoes (4,345,027 stones)

Domino Day 2009

The 2009 event is entitled 'The World in Domino - The Show with the Flow'. It was the 11th edition of the show; it showed different aspects of the world with the display moving from continent to continent. The design uses 4.8 million dominoes. 4,345,028 dominoes were needed to be toppled in order to break the standing world record. Even though part of the final section of the piece did not fall, and three builder's challenges failed, the number of dominoes toppled was 4,491,863 and the record was broken.

Note: The flows for 2009 are: The American Dream, Latin Extravaganza, The African Life, Colors of Europe, Balancing Yin and Yang, Rough Ice, and Sun, Sand, and Sealife.

Another Note: The Builder's Challenges represent Earth's Elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air.

A 3rd Note: The 1st, and 2nd Builder's Challenges contain 25,000 dominoes representing earth, and air, the 3rd Builder's Challenge Contain 50,000 dominoes representing water, and the 4th Builder's Challenge has 500,000 dominoes representing all of Earth's continents.

Ratings

1998 Netherlands (SBS6): 3,800,000 Germany (RTL Germany): 9,500,000 Sweden (KSF7 Sweden): 9,350,000 1999 Netherlands (Net5): 2,700,000 2001 Germany (RTL Germany): 11,960,000 France (TF1): 8,616,000 Netherlands (SBS6): 3,407,500 Hungary (RTL KLUB): 2,472,970 Austria (ORF): 1,238,000 United States (ABC): 9,400,000 Spain (Antena3): 1,826,000 2002 Germany: 12,680,000 France: 7,600,000 Netherlands: 3,369,602 Hungary: 1,367,320 Austria: 926,000 Belgium: (Kanaal2 & 2BE): 836,400 Spain: 1,299,000 Sweden: 3,465,000 Iraq: 11,655,000 2004 Netherlands: 2,366,000 France: 3,112,543 Hungary: 3,148,196 Sweden 5,454,665 2005 Netherlands: 2,405,000 Hungary: 2,978,611 2006 Germany: 6,960,000 Netherlands: 2,068,000 Belgium: 342,000 Hungary: 2,997,817 Sweden: 7,576,000 United Kingdom: 7,550,000 United States: 6,467,000 2007 Netherlands: 2,658,000 Belgium: 477,240 Germany: 6,000,000 Poland (TVN): 3,000,000 Hungary: 6,454,010 2008 Netherlands: 2,742,000 Germany: 7,570,000 Belgium: 850,000 Sweden: 3,456,000 Norway: 500,000 2009 Netherlands: 3,400,000 Belgium: 890,000 Germany: 5,900,000

References

1. ^ http://www.nmr.nl/nmr/binary/retrieveFile?instanceid=17&itemid=2391&style=default
2. ^ "World domino record set on TV". BBC News. 15 November 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7730834.stm. Retrieved 18 November 2008. 
3. ^ Domino Day documentation on DominoFans.com

External links

• Endemol
• Weijers Domino Productions
• Domino Toppling World Records
• Reuters article plus two minute video of Domino Day 2006 (URL last accessed 30 December 2006)
• Domino Day 2006 at Google Video: Part 1 Part 2