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Home / Northern Advocate

Thousands expected to attempt Guinness World Record for sand sculpture building in Ruakākā

RNZ
24 Oct, 2025 09:33 PM2 mins to read

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Over a thousand people are gathering at Ruakaka Beach in hopes of breaking the world record for most people building sand sculptures at once. Photo / RNZ, Cole Eastham-Farrelly

Over a thousand people are gathering at Ruakaka Beach in hopes of breaking the world record for most people building sand sculptures at once. Photo / RNZ, Cole Eastham-Farrelly

By Felix Walton of RNZ

Over a thousand people are gathering at Ruakākā Beach in Northland on Saturday in hopes of breaking the world record for most people building sand sculptures at once.

The Guinness World Record attempt is a statement against a fast-track proposal by McCallum Bros to mine sand from Bream Bay.

But organiser Mary Sinclair, a spokesperson for Bream Bay Guardians, said it was not a protest.

“On Saturday, the focus is not on a protest, it’s on engaging youth to talk about our healthy ocean and what we might do to make sure it stays healthy,” she said.

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“We’re doing it this weekend because our young people have been learning about healthy oceans and schools, and what we want those young people to be is ambassadors for Bream Bay in the future.”

The current record holder for ‘most people making sand sculptures simultaneously’ is Middelkerke in Belgium, where 396 people gathered in 2019.

Sinclair said local school children and their families had been invited to participate in the attempt, which she expects will smash the record.

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“Our goal is to have 2000 people on the beach simultaneously, and with the amount of support that we’re getting at the moment, I would be surprised if we don’t get there,” she said.

“We’ve got the sausages wrapped up in bread and tomato sauce, we’ve got ice blocks, and we’ve got lots and lots of people coming to engage everybody in a very fun afternoon on Ruakākā Beach.”

She said the purpose was not to build one large sculpture, but hundreds of individual sculptures.

“We’re encouraging them to be creative and to work individually, small groups, larger groups, and then we’ve got an emcee on the beach, so we will go around and we will engage the young people and the people undertaking those sand sculptures and have discussions about the meaning of those.”

The attempt is set to run from 12.30pm to 3.30pm.

- RNZ

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