Fantasy Fest, Key West — browse photos from Duval Street’s biggest annual celebration.
Fantasy Fest takes over the last week of October every year, and it has been doing so since 1979, when a handful of Key West business owners cooked up a costume parade to fill hotel rooms during the slow season. It worked a little too well: what started as a local fundraiser is now ten days of themed parties, a Masquerade March, a Pet Masquerade, body-painted revelers, and a Saturday night parade down Duval Street that can draw tens of thousands of people into a town of about 25,000.
The galleries below go back to 2001 and cover more than Fantasy Fest alone. Duval Street throws itself into Hemingway Days, Conch Republic Days, New Year’s Eve, and no shortage of parties that only ever had one name and one year, from toga nights at Sloppy Joe’s to boat races and homemade bikini contests.
Pick a year or an event below to see what the street looked like. To see the street as it is right now, open the live Duval Street webcam, and check the events calendar for this year’s dates.
