Masquerading

November 7, 2011

Kathy & Michael

* Photo by Nick Doll





Masquerading

One of the largest and most popular events of the entire Fantasy Fest celebration is the annual Masquerade March which is held on Friday evening. The event is a walking parade which heads off in two separate directions, following completely different routes as it winds through Old Town from the starting point near the Key West Cemetery eventually merging into the street fair that takes place on Duval Street.

Erin

Lynn & Brewster

KP



Each year thousands of costumed locals and visitors jam the streets, stopping at various guest houses along the route for free libations and passing in front of thousands more who line the streets to take in the costumed mayhem. This event has grown in size each year and now has reached a saturation point where it is just about too popular for its own good, though I still love it.



Nadene & Michael



Haven & Elena

As we have for the past few years, we gathered with a number of friends at a pre-party at the home of our friends Wendy & Scott. They host a fantastic party to help people get fired up for the march and they almost always have some of the best costumes for whatever Fantasy Fest event they attend. I want to thank them for hosting the party and for being so in to Fantasy Fest, we always look forward to see what they have come up with as far as amazing costumes go.



Autumn

Carol & Eliza

Liz

Kathy & I came dressed as the Little Mermaid and Ursala, with me taking the Little Mermaid role. We had received great acclaim a few years ago with our take on Snow White and we brought back the twisted Disney take with a shout out to this years’ theme, “Aquatic Afrolic”. The theme celebrates both our island heritage and the sea which surrounds us and it was actually a really good theme for a change. There were plenty of people who created amazing costumes in keeping with the theme. There were plenty of fish, mermaids, octopuses and a plethora of jellyfish.



Kathy



Martha & Kathy



This march brings out the most creative locals and there were an amazing number of people in costume, perhaps the largest crowd that I have ever seen at the march. It was really slow going as the thousands of people who headed the same direction as we did ( down Fleming Street) all slowly inched along the parade route.





Kris & Todd



As always we saw tons of our friends along the way, both participating and watching along the route. It was a fairly perfect evening, though it did start to rain a little as we neared the end of the route, just before we were to blend back on to Duval Street. We headed over to the bar at Virgilio’s to wait out the rain before heading back out on to Duval to check out the street fair.



Carla

Chris & Erin