dominoday history

THE HISTORY OF DOMINO TELEVISION

Since 1998, John de Mol Produkties/ ENDEMOL Netherlands has been responsible for producing the entire event. SBS Broadcasting is the partner in transmitting the television live event in the Netherlands. The outstanding know-how of dominos, its technics as well as the creative design is under control of Robin Paul Weijers and his professional team of Weijers Domino Productions.

In 1986, the very first effort to set a world record was made in Lisse in the Netherlands, but to no avail. Still, TV coverage of this spectacular event through public broadcast company TROS attracted 8.2 million viewers (55% of the entire Dutch population!). A second effort in the Dutch town of Rosmalen two years (1988) later did pay off: a world record was established by toppling 1,382,101 dominos.

After ten years, in August 1998, a new attempt on the world record took place in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. Sixty students set up more than two million dominos over a seven-week period. Of these 1,605,757 were toppled by one push. A new world record was officially acknowledged by Guinness World Records. This magnificent feat was witnessed by 4 million viewers in the Netherlands (SBS Broadcasting) and no fewer than 9.5 million viewers in Germany (RTL Television).

November 1999, no less than 2.5 million dominos were set by enthusiastic young people on the surface of a former indoor livestock-market ‘Prins Bernardhoeve’ in Zuidlaren, the Netherlands. The program covering the live event attracted also a record-breaking TV-viewership of more than 15 million Europeans.

December 1999, there came an unexpected answer from the other side of the world: Chinese students set with 2.7 million dominos a new world record.

Fall 2000 saw, with 3.1 million dominos, yet another world record being broken in the Netherlands. An attempt to break the Chinese Record was successful for the Dutch again. Popsinger Lionel Richie had the honour to push the first domino.

New Year’s Eve 2000, a group of students from China, Japan and Korea beat their European counterparts again with 3,407,535 dominos, another world record.

November 16, Domino Day 2001 took place in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Entertainer Kylie Minoque toppled the first domino. Domino builders from different nationalities set wit 3,540.562 dominos a new world record. This years’ event was broadcasted live in eight European countries. The U.S.A. and China adopted the show as well, but chose to broadcast a ready made program afterwards. An amazing total of over 40 million viewers were glued to Domino Day 2001.

Celebrating its 5 th anniversary, Domino Day 2002 returned on Novemer 15 to the Frisian Expo Center in Leeuwarden. The theme was “Expressions 4 millions” and again a new world record was set with 3.847.295 of toppling dominos.

November 12, 2004. The theme of this year's event was "The Challenge". And a challenge it was! Builders were setting up the last stones during the live tv broadcast. Another challenge lied in rebuilding projects that failed previous years. We broke the record of 2002 and set a new world record at 3.992.397 stones, which was again officially registered at Guinnes World Records Ltd.

November 18, 2005 . On November 18th 2005 we managed to break the world record domino toppling yet again. The spectacular setting of the show was like a theatre. In this 'theatre' we told stories from all over the world. The new world record is now: 4.002.136 dominoes!

November, 2006. This year's theme was 'Music in Motion', so it was all about music. 4.400.000 Stones represented the 9 most important music movements of the last centuries. This time, the fact that the last builder's challenge took place after all the other stones had already been counted, added an extra thrill to the attempt.The builders did it again. With a total of 4.079.381 stones that fell, a new record was set.