Critical West’s Fantasy Fest commenced Friday, launching a 10-working day schedule of masquerades, elaborate events and costume competitions.
Rob O’Neal / AP
The masking and costuming pageant is themed “Uniforms & Unicorns: 200 Many years Of Sailing Into Fantasy” to salute the Florida Keys’ 2023 bicentennial and that of the U.S. Navy’s existence in Crucial West.
The Fantasy Fest agenda features approximately 100 occasions which includes Sunday’s Zombie Bike Experience, the Pet Masquerade for costumed pets and their persons, the flamboyant Headdress Ball and the Masquerade March that attracts a number of thousand costumed members in historic Aged City.
Events are to culminate upcoming Saturday night, when some 60,000 spectators are expected to line Crucial West’s downtown streets for the Fantasy Fest Parade, a procession of big-scale motorized floats, costumed marching groups and island-model dancers in colorful feathered attire.
The competition has been notoriously renowned for its decadent motif, but during the past several a long time, festival officials have focused their efforts on artistic costuming and an exertion to develop a lot more PG-rated occasions.
Fantasy Fest debuted in 1979 to increase the fledgling tourism overall economy for the duration of a gradual period. Now, tourism officers said, it delivers about $30 million in yearly revenues to the Florida Keys.
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