OULU, Finland (AP) — Zac "The Magnet" Monro opened the final of the Air Guitar World Championships Friday with a neat mime of playing an electric guitar to rock music that shook the ground beneath the feet of a few hundred gathered in a rainy small city square in northern Finland.

He was the first of 17 performers at the offbeat event that started as a joke in 1996 and has grown into a fest of crazy pretend guitar players that attracts people from the world over to the city of Oulu, a high-tech hub on the Baltic Sea surrounded by forests.

In 1996, there were eight competitors with one foreign champion, from neighboring Sweden. This year, a record 30 so-called "dark horses" from a dozen countries competed for a place in the final to join seven national champions from as far away as the United States, Japan and Canada who qualified automatically for the final alongside reigning world champion, Japan's Nanami "Seven Seas" Nagura.

It was going to be a tight race right from the start, with only 6/10th of a point separating the first and last of the nine who qualified out of the 30 for the evening's two-round event.

"Seven Seas" gave a vivid performance, but slipped on the stage under a relentless night sky that kept the event wet but didn't dampen the spirits. She was unfazed, however, and completed her show in a true professional air guitar style that earned her applause.

Before the competition, one of the evening's judges, Aline Westphal from Germany, said she would be looking for precision.

"It's important that the contestants are very precise on the instrument and their facial expressions too," she said.

And, of course, the inexplicable "airness" quality needs to be good, she added. "You just feel it when airness is there."

Eyes were also on Matt "Airistotle" Burns from Staten Island, New York, the three-time title holder in the U.S. — the "powerhouse of air" which holds dozens of air guitar competitions every year that provide a living for some. They include the official "Air host" of the world championships, Dan Crane, who lives in Los Angeles.

Author of "To Air is Human: One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist," he has never made it to No. 1 but finished second twice. He decided to stay in the rarified "air world," hosting the world championships since 2008.

"The absurdity required to hold this event in this small city in northern Finland is equally proportionate to the absurdity of playing an invisible guitar in front of thousands of people," Crane said before he stepped on stage in a circus director's costume of a red glittering coat and top hat.

Belgium's national champion, Emmanuelle "Miss Issippy" Stempniakowski, admitted she had butterflies but it didn't seem to adversely affect her show.

"I will give all I have inside me - all the adrenalin, all the joy and all the happiness," she said before the show, baring her teeth in a cat's growl.

Appearing on stage as a puppet on a string she broke her bonds shaking while strumming her imaginary guitar.