“The painted faces on the street…” –Berlin

October 27, 2018

 

Kathy 

“The painted faces on the street…” –Berlin

As the Final weekend of the 2018 Fantasy Fest celebration arrived, anticipation was at a fever pitch. The week and every event that I had attended had gone about as perfectly as one could hope and things were winding down and gearing up for a huge finish at the same time. Friday brings about one of the best attended, most fun, most creative event of the week with the annual Masquerade March or as many simply call it, “The Local’s Parade”.

Kathy

Suzanne 

Caitlin and Effie

It got this name because for years and to this day, it is probably the event that draws the most local participation, both as people dressed up and participating in the parade and those who line the neighborhood streets to watch it as it passes on its way down to Duval Street and the heart of downtown. It is not exactly totally family friendly, but it also is not the totally adult situation that is found downtown in the Fantasy Zone either and you see a number of kids and families both in the parade and along the route as well.

 

The day begins with the opening of the Fantasy Fest Street Fair which lines the majority of Duval Street starting at noon and going on till at least 10 PM. The line-up of vendors selling all manner of things as well as a huge variety of food and beverage sellers as well. Duval Street is turned in to a promenade with thousands of costumed people shopping, strolling, drinking and dancing at certain locations like in front of Duval Street bars like 801 Bourbon Street.

Cale and Effie 

Jim, Mary-Beth and Heidi

Like most of the Fantasy Fest events, the street fair was especially nice this year with many cool vendors and some delicious food offerings well beyond the standard street fair food. I have always enjoyed attending the street fair as it is fun to peruse the vendors and to see so many wacky costumes as people are out all day and late into the night along Duval Street.

The Nelson family 

The Street fair is the final destination of the masquerade march as the parade winds through Old Town from its beginning near the cemetery until finally emptying out on to Duval, where the literally thousands of people who take part in the march join the masses already assembled to make one giant party on Duval just after the sun sets.

The parade, which in previous years has diverged in two separate directions has condensed to a single route, which to me has always been the most prominent route as it heads from the cemetery to Fleming then down Fleming to Simonton Street over to Olivia then down to merge onto Duval. Since there was only a single route the parade seemed much larger and longer as the thousands of costumed revelers all headed off in the same direction, meaning the parade got strung out pretty well and took almost three hours to completely pass by. 

Kristyn 

Rafael and Alex

There are also a ton of private viewing parties as well as the normal guest house stops involved where the participants can stop for free drinks and jello shots along the way. It seemed to me that there were way more people watching this year as well and way more private parties. Almost every block along the route, we would see friends and get to stop at a number of parties for food, drinks and the all-important restrooms.

 

There were so many costumes that really took the theme and ran with it, creating masterful costumes that captured the “Games We Play” theme. Kathy created wonderful costumes for the two of us as we dressed up as the game Chinese Checkers and through in a political twist as “Chinese Trade War Checkers”.  I was a little concerned that some might view our costumes as some sort of cultural appropriation, but they turned out great and we were careful to be respectful and not demeaning in our interpretation.

 

Fran

I think we achieved that as people seemed to love the costumes, with the few Chinese and Asian people we encountered seemingly even more interested in getting photographed with us. We even were photographed and appeared in the Key West Citizen’s coverage of the event, which I thought was pretty cool. 

Josh