A while back -- more than a year ago -- someone called Massachusetts-based event organizer Fred Smith and asked: Do you have any ideas for a fundraiser?

His answer: Um ... well ... how about ... uh ... musical chairs?

And that -- an idea off the top of Smith's head -- is how the Musical Chairs World Championships, held last weekend in Amesbury, Mass., was born.

Yes, after Googling and seeing very little in the way of previous competitive musical chairs events, Smith -- 32 years old and creator of the sizable charity scavenger hunt Smithfest -- decided to go ahead with it. He lined up charities, the largest beneficiary, he said, being Music Drives Us. He got the word out and got more than 1,500 people to take part, with Mike Sugalski taking home the title (and the $10,000 top prize).

And although Smith fell quite a bit short of the Guinness World Record (8,238 participants at a 1989 Singapore game), he wrote this week via email that "we will look to break it until we do, and then we will look to one-up ourselves from every year from there."

Now for some shots of the competition. Until next year ...