Quest for water balloon fight record falls short

By ALEXIS STEVENS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

They started with 15,000 water balloons, and a world record at stake.

Enlarge photo

Jamie Gumbrecht, jgumbrecht@ajc.com 99X DJ Lewis Alston (center) enters the line of fire as the water balloon fight at Masquerade Music Park commences.

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In the end, the balloons were gone. But the record will likely have to wait a year.

“I don’t think we broke the record, but we had a really good time,” said Jaynie Coffee of Door 44, a club in Midtown.

Coffee helped organize the event as a fund raiser for Camp Twin Lakes in Rutledge, a summer camp that is home to various programs for medically fragile children.

For $5 each, attendants got three balloons each. When it was time to start the toss Saturday afternoon behind the Masquerade club on North Avenue, the remainder of the mini water bombs were distributed.

A giant “slip and slide” also was available for kids wanting to get even more soggy, Coffee said. Tattoo artist Russ Abbott provided war paint for the balloon tossers.

As an after-party kicked off at Door 44 late Saturday night, Coffee said she was still calculating the number of paid participants in the event.

So who holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest-ever water balloon toss? A group of 5,800 in Australia.

“Next year, it’s going down,” Coffee said. “I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”