Fantasy Fest

The festival

What is Fantasy Fest

Fantasy Fest is Key West’s biggest celebration—the island at the end of the Overseas Highway, at Florida’s southern tip. For ten days in October, during the two weekends closest to Halloween, the city’s Old Town fills with costumes, contests, balls, street fairs, themed parties and parades. Each year the organizers choose a theme that inspires outfits, decorated facades and the parade floats.

The event began in 1979, when a group of Duval Street merchants wanted to liven up October, a slow month when many shops closed for lack of visitors. They organized a small parade with an old-Key West theme, and the idea grew into an event of more than sixty parties, costumed marches, street fairs and balls that draws visitors from across the country and is often likened to a carnival.

The crowning of the festival king and queen opens the season. They are elected through a fundraising campaign: whoever raises the most money for the benefiting charity wins. For about three decades the campaign supported a local health organization; since 2023 it benefits the Keys’ humane society. The program also includes a zombie bicycle parade, a pet costume contest, facade and costume competitions, balls and a street fair on Duval Street.

The first weekend features Goombay, a street party in Bahama Village, Key West’s neighborhood with Afro-Bahamian roots, with Caribbean music, crafts and food stalls. On the Friday of the final weekend, the Masquerade March—called the locals’ parade—brings costumed residents through Old Town to Duval Street. On Saturday night the main parade, with floats and costumed groups, proceeds down Duval Street. Groups of friends often plan for months to prepare costumes and floats, and the parade mixes elaborate productions with neighborhood groups and local associations.

Part of the program is adult-oriented: at night Duval Street becomes a street party with daring costumes and body paint, and it has its own code of conduct. Daytime events like Goombay, the pet contest and family activities are more relaxed and family-friendly. Residents and businesses decorate porches and facades of Old Town’s wooden houses, and there’s a contest for the best-decorated. If you visit the Florida Keys in autumn, the festival shows the island’s most irreverent side.