A WORLD record is now well on course to being broken by Great Yarmouth after nearly 500 people registered to participate in the Where's Wally? event in the town's Market Place.

A WORLD record is now well on course to being broken by Great Yarmouth after nearly 500 people registered to participate in the Where's Wally? event in the town's Market Place.

With two weeks left until Wally Day on October 24, organisers the town centre partnership are looking to get 1,200 people registered to cover for possible absentees.

The town is aiming to beat the current record held by New York when 1,052 people dressed as Wally's American equivalent Waldo.

Town centre manager Jonathan Newman said costumes had been

sent out as far afield as Northern Ireland and Wales through online orders and had been selling well at Books Inside in Market Gates shopping centre.

He said: “We have had a great response over the last week. It is really picking up. A lot of the costumes have been selling well at Books Inside. We are close to the halfway mark.”

If breaking a world record was not enough of an incentive, participants will receive a goodie bag containing special offers including a family ticket for four to Yarmouth's Tolhouse Museum and discount tickets to the Sealife Centre on the seafront.

Mr Newman added that other businesses and tourist attractions in the town had been approached to see if they could provide special offers for the goodie bag.

The world record attempt is the brainchild of independent bookseller Martin Blackwell, from Books Inside, and the aim is to get as many people as possible in the same area wearing cartoon character Wally's trademark costume of red stripy shirt, bobble hat and glasses.

The costume costs �5 and is available from Books Inside and the website www.gytcp.co.uk/ wally.