Cairns is poised to become the Zumba capital of Australia, with a tilt at the world record for participation in a class scheduled for next month.

It is hoped that more than 2000 people will gather at Fogarty Park in Cairns on February 21 to be part of what organisers believe will become an historic moment for the city.

The idea stems from the Council's Active Living program which includes free Zumba classes twice a week.

“We regularly get around 300 participants and we thought, if we put the challenge out there, that we could attract enough people to get into the Guinness Book of World Records,” said instructor Brooke Marshall.

Currently, the record stands at 2012 participants, achieved at Twickenham, UK, on June 11, 2011.

“We believe the Australian record is about 1400, so we would like to at least take that crown.

“But we really want to have a crack at the world record – and I don’t think it is beyond reach,”  Ms Marshall said.

It is hoped that visitors to the region will be among those to work up a record-breaking sweat.

“This attempt really is about people joining together to be a part of something, it doesn’t matter where you are from, just join in." 

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