You will need black shoes, black pants or a skirt, a white shirt, a cardigan and a black cloak. Upper teeth are mandatory, pale skin is helpful, and killer behavior is optional.
English Heritage has announced plans to break a world record that few knew should be broken: it wants to organize the world’s largest gathering of people dressed as vampires.
The setting will be Whitby Abbey, a dramatically atmospheric 13th-century Gothic abbey that helped inspire Bram Stoker to write the classic novel, which turns 125 this year.
Mark Williamson, abbey site manager, said each generation had its own Dracula or vampire, whether it was Christopher Lee from the 50s and 60s horror films Hammer, Wesley Snipes as Blade or Robert Pattinson as the sensitive bloodsucker in Twilight.
“Everyone has their own vampire and thousands of people come to Whitby and the abbey every year,” he said. “It feels like Dracula’s spiritual home.”
It was at Whitby Stoker that he absorbed the atmosphere that would be a key part of the novel’s success, including the dramatic ruins of the abbey, innocent tourists, the beautiful harbor and the salty tales of the returning locals.
A trip to the city’s public library led Stoker to come across a book published in 1820 by William Wilkinson, A Tale of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Related to Them. There was a story about a 15th century prince named Vlad the Impaler, who is said to have impaled his enemies with wooden stakes. He was known as Dracula.
Whitby is trying to break the record set at an amusement park in Doswell, Virginia. Photo: English Heritage
Whitby is trying to break the record set at an amusement park in Doswell, Virginia, on September 30, 2011, when 1,039 vampire imitators gathered as part of a Halloween event.
It was a surprisingly difficult record to break. Attempts in 2019 outside a church in Dublin failed, as in 2013 in West Sussex.
Organizers of the bidding in West Sussex have blamed too many vampires wearing illegal shoes. “The criteria are really, very strict, so we failed,” said one.
The English heritage apparently has to attract 1,040 certified vampires to try for a record on May 26, but Williamson said he hopes to get 1897, marking the year Dracula was first published.
“It’s a dream come true and I think we can do it.”
There are criteria for what is considered a vampire look and the judges will be there to judge if each person is making an incision.
For some, the nose will be a stumbling block. Who the hell has a cloak? “I have two,” Williamson said. “I happen to live with a costume historian, so I have one from the 1840s. You have to, don’t you? I have to do it right. ”
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