Throngs of bead-seeking beer-drinking revelers flooded the streets of Tampa Saturday for the 101st Gasparilla Invasion and parade. Crowds of nearly 200,000 were expected for the melee that annually takes over the streets of Tampa.
For a photographer, the coolest thing about Gasparilla isn't the beads, the beer, or the debauchery. It's the people! The folks who walk in the parade are great. But the cool and crazy commotion of citizenry all along the parade route dressed in colorful pirate garb, most of them pretty hammered, are always rich with personality and a photographer's dream. Gasparilla has become the biggest party in Tampa for a reason: It's fun!
Susan, a member of the Sea Save Yours SteamPunk Pirate Krewe, says theirs is a nonprofit mission to ensure safe and protected waterways and water safety. They have also launched Operation WOW (Warriors on the Water).
Saturday's festivities were wild. The parade started right at 2 o'clock under sunny skies and cool weather. With the pop, pop, pop of guns from the pirates and thumping dance music from the floats, it was a high-energy atmosphere soaked in beer, smoked in cigars, and stoked by hordes of partiers hungry for a 10-cent string of beads.
Dozens of reserved seats went unfilled, stretched out along prime parade viewing spots. Controversy is brewing over corporate sponsorships crowding out everyday paradegoers' ability to see the festivities, especially when the seats go unused.
There was plenty of action after the parade as well. As the crowds left the wet zone (Tampa's one-day permit area that allows for the carrying of alcohol in open containers), intoxication took over. Four men were arrested following a scuffle, a woman dropped her cell phone down a sewer and retrieved it, and passed-out bodies and people throwing up spotted the landscape. Ahh... Gasparilla!
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is a woman being held upside down by her boots in a sewer drain. As I was walking by, she accidentally dropped her phone into the sewer, and she asked her friends to pull the lid off and hold her feet while she lowered herself down to get it. By the time the sheriff's officer in the picture had arrived, she was already dangling upside down. She retrieved the phone, they put the lid back on the sewer, and the party continued!
Remnants of the party are scattered along Bayshore Boulevard. Broken strings of beads, beer cans, and food wrappers will all be swept up by the sanitation department by midnight, readying the city for next year's takeover.
The city-wide party continues through March with other parades, art shows, and a film festival.
Feb. 13, 7 p.m Sant’ Yago Knight Parade
Feb. 20 and 21 Gasparilla Distance Classic
March 5 and 6 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts
March 12 and 13 Gasparilla Music Festival
March 30 to April 3 Gasparilla Film Festival
April 1, 2016 Gasp! The Gasparilla Fringe Festival