Be a Part of a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS Attempt for the Largest Kazoo Ensemble During the 2025 International Cherry Blossom Festival
Thursday, January 30th, 2025
DATE: Friday, March 28, 2025
TIME: Gates open at 4pm; Attempt at 6pm; Performance to follow
WHERE: Atrium Health Amphitheater, 3657 Eisenhower Pkwy, Macon, GA
Admission is only $5 and will go on sale Tuesday, February 4th!
All proceeds will go to the Otis Redding Foundation & Otis Redding Center for the Arts
SPONSORED BY: Visit Macon, Cherry Blossom Festival, Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce, Choose Macon, Otis Redding Foundation, and many more Macon Community Organizations!
Join thousands of visitors & Maconites during the annual International Cherry Blossom Festival to attempt the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the Largest Kazoo Ensemble. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, February 4th. Purchase yours at visitmacon.org/kazoo or in-person at the Atrium Health Amphitheatre Box Office. Admission is only $5 – free for children 6 and under – and will include special guests and/or performances yet to be announced! We encourage everyone to reserve yours as early as possible to help keep count toward reaching the required attendance.
The current record is 5,190 participants and was achieved in London in 2011.
Kazoo expert Rick Hubbard will facilitate the attempt to bring the World Record back to America- and specifically home to Macon, Georgia. Visit Macon will provide kazoos to everyone participating/in attendance, and a keepsake upon exiting so that attendees can prove they were part of this world record attempt experience!
On National Kazoo Day (Tuesday, January 28th), Visit Macon and the Tubman African American Museum opened a pop-up Kazoo Exhibit in honor of Black History Month. The exhibit will remain up through the entirety of February & March. The display was created and customized for Macon and the Tubman Museum, by the original designer & curator of the National Kazoo Museum & Factory of Beaufort, SC. The exhibit celebrates more than 150 years of kazoo history featuring rare and historic kazoo archives from around the world and colorful, interactive, made-for-selfie photo opps. The booming music city (where Little Richard, James Brown, The Allman Brothers and Otis Redding all got their starts) will feature the instrument and the musicians who ultimately became fans like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and more. The exhibit allows for local, regional and national press outreach and promotion of this exciting World Record attempt on March 28th!
Why the Kazoo? Legend has it that freed slave Alabama Vest created the musical instrument we know and love as the kazoo in Macon, Georgia in the 1840s. Inspired by the African horn-mirliton or onion flute, Vest brought his original prototype- made from a simple wooden tube with a piece of paper attached to it- to local clockmaker Thaddeus Von Clegg. Together they produced a design that they officially debuted at the Georgia State Fair in Macon in 1852, calling it a "Down South Submarine."
“We are going all out for this Record and hope to bring this piece of our city’s vast music history back home to the United States and the birthplace of the instrument!” states Gary Wheat, President & CEO of Visit Macon. “It’s all about making some good noise and drawing attention to what Macon, Georgia has to offer visitors! We are thrilled to have our partners in the community helping at every step along the way, but it is going to take a lot of support from our residents, businesses and our guests to help as well! Contact us if you have ideas to support or participate, and plan now to bring the whole family out to bring this World Record home where it belongs!”
For more information, visit visitmacon.org/kazoo and
