Fantasy Fest 2009 Red Party

Red costumes are awesome- fun to make, wear, and watch! Here are some of the best of 2009 Fantasy Fest, Wednesday night out in front of the Red Party.

Li'l Orphan Annie is the first one, I think. How original is that, what a great costume. It's body paint but it's prim!

And sometimes, if you have a great body and impressive tatoos, that's all the creativity you need. A red corset and you're all set for the Red Party. That's the second photo.

And group costumes are always great looking, too. Those guys, I don't know what they were supposed to be, but they looked fantastic.

Saturday Night Of Fantasy Fest 2008

Well, this was the big night, the big parade the big crowds. We actually stood in one place this year rather than strolling up and down, and really, you get to see more costumes that way. We went out around 8, while the big parade was in session. Whew, you gotta plan your moves while the parade is going on. The street is blocked off with metal fences all the way down Duval, to Mel Fisher's and beyond. You just can't cross anywhere! We went a block or two past Mel's, down Whitehead Street, I think. The one with Audubon House. There, the crowds thin out and you see mostly locals who bring lawn chairs and know they won't be bothered by the masses up at that end. The metal barriers are gone and here you can cross. But if you're wearing heels like I was, this is a long trek. Good thing my heels were wedge heels.

In general, high heels last about twenty minutes, then most girls will change into flats. I did that last year, and knew this year to wear wedge heels if I was going to survive the night. 

More Sarah Palins out tonight, but in general not so many political themed costumes. The theme was difficult to dress to: political stuff. Be an elephant or a jackass or Sarah Pahlin? Not sexy or fantasic enough. There was a flo

at in the parade full of Monica Lewinskys and a few Bill Clintons, but not that exciting either. Last year's theme was great: basically Alice in Wonderland. All kinds of crazy tea party costumes and fantastic attire.

Here are few of my favorite Fantasy Fest 2008 costumes. It was another great year, and I still can't wait for next year. I guess that means I'm not yet a local.

Friday Night of Fantasy Fest 2008

Less rain, more people.

Now Duval is really blocked off and the costumes are out. People are here for the weekend now, who are, thankfully, younger. Not that there's anything wrong with all ages enjoying the freedom of expression that Fantasy Fest offers. But it's good to have a balance, with all age groups represented.

Tonight was the Pimp 'n Ho party and the Pirate Bash. More pirates out there, but surprisingly few pimps and hos. Well, I think some costumes were ho-ish anyway, but not for the party. And ho-ish is part of the spirit of Fantasy Fest, so it's a good thing.

Costumes were excellent tonight. Raggedy Ann and her Raggedy Andy were awesome. They win hands down for best couple's costumes. Not only were their costumes perfect, but their personalities seemed to match the Raggedy persona. They were so, I don't know, floppy and happy. Kind of like giant dolls on E.

Seemed like the boxing couple also chose their costumes according to personal aura. They were in fabulous shape, maybe they were personal trainers. I just loved their whole look. Good job.

99% of the people out there love having their pictures taken. They worked hard, obviously anyone dressed up at Fantasy Fest has a little exhibitionist in them. So it's fun to dress up and be wierd and have people want to take your picture. From experience, it's a great feeling. Everyone should feel it once in their life.

Too bad those girls in the ivy costumes didn't agree. Girls, enjoy yourselves! Or have a drink or something if you need one. Fantasy Fest is not the place to feel shy or unfriendly. You won't get the full benefit, darlings. This is not a cocktail party!

Toga Party, Thursday Night of Fantasy Fest 2008

There is just so. much. rain.

Is body paint waterproof? It's not just rain, it's downpour and flooding. However, Fantasy Fest 2008 rolled on Thursday night. When the downpours came, people crowded under awnings of Duval Street and into bars, still happy. If you spend all year looking forward to Fantasy Fest, and pour all that energy into a fabulous costume, why let a little rain stop you? I only worried for the guy whose toga costume was made entirely of body paint. Yes, he painted his toga right on!

There was a PJ and lingerie party too, but we didn't see many costumes for this one. The toga party is definitely very popular and famous. Plus it's at Sloppy Joe's, one of the most famous Key West bars.

Those two tall tall men whom I remember from last year's Fantasy Fest were out again. They have the best costumes! I was transfixed by the huge black feathered headdresses they wore with their trojan outfits. Wow. They definitely carry the spirit of Fantasy Fest with them.

Speaking of the spirit of Fantasy Fest, what is it with locals? Today my survery continued, "So, all geared up for Fantasy Fest?". "Oh, it just means more work". Yo, idiot, work is money. You were probably crying out for business just a few weeks ago during the off season! Locals are so whiney. I swear, they love to complain. Oh, business is so bad. Oh, I have to work so hard. Which is it?

Fantasy Fest Green Party 2008

Finnegan's Wake had its new annual Green Party last night. If you wear green you get in for free, but it wasn't actually enforced so even white t-shirts passed in with no cover. There were people standing out front, which was cool because you could see their outfits. Inside, people sat at booths and mingled but somehow it seemed more lively out on the street.

The band tried a few times to corral people inside, using a megaphone even! Well, the megaphone was part of their act so why not use it to try and get people inside the bar where they might buy some drinks. We were there for a few hours and heard maybe three songs played. They were on break or something when we arrived, but oy what a long break! Once they started playing again people actually moved out of bar and back outside again!

I'm going to have to say that sitting inside a bar during Fantasy Fest is like going to a movie and spending the whole time in the bathroom because you ran into someone you know in the next stall. Don't you want to see the show? You're missing all action! Why sit in a bar, talking to the same people you see every day, looking at a tv screen or whatever, when there is a festival right outside those doors, with people dressed elaborate costumes, body paint, or nothing at all. The mood on the streets during Fantasy Fest is so much fun, so positive, such a great time. Why would you want to sit in a bar and listen to people blathering on about nothing at all or just talking about themselves?

Anyhoo, there were some awesome costumes. Even if it was a fabulous little green dress, I love the festiveness of people who get into the costume part of Fantasy Fest. There were some girls dressed in green hotpants and tube socks, some sort of green sports theme. Some great ultra Vogue designer dresses with matching shoes, and some silly leprechauns. That was mostly outside the bar, but hey that's part of the Green Party too. Next year maybe go with the tried-and-true Irish band. There certainly isn't any shortage of Irish bands in the world to pick from, right?

Leather Night at Fantasy Fest

Monday Night of Fantast Fest 2008 could be called Leather Night. There was the Dungeons and Dragons party at 801 Bourbon Street. 801 Bourbon Street is a drag queen gay bar at 801 Duval Street. Their party is on the official Fantasy Fest 2008 website as the only party that night. But that's incorrect. There was also a leather and bondage party at Kelly's Caribbean Bar on Whitehead Street. That party was pretty interesting, even if you didn't pay to go in. The sidewalk in front of the bar had plenty of action!

People in their favorite leather costumes, masks and whips showed up from all over the place, and since this isn't a gay bar, maybe it's the biggest leather-bondage-fetish party during Fantasy Fest. There's also a Leather and Lace party at Club Zu, but don't know anything about it yet.

Leather and bondage people haven' yet realized that it's not the 80's anymore, and those high-waisted thongs aren't really in style any more. But I guess that's what they think is attractive. Then we had the lineup of butts, which a friend called "The Timeline of Butts" since it went from young to more mature, left to right. I'd show you but I don't think I'm allowed to post pictures like that on Blogger.

Fantasy Fest for Locals?

What's up Fantasy Fest is starting this week, with Goombay. This will be my second one, and I'm pretty excited. Last year's Fantasy Fest 2007 was a blast. The vibe on the street is super friendly and communal, bacchanalian and cheerful. The best costumes are the ones people dream up themselves, or the body paint done by a very good artist. And I like anything with plumage, so the more feathers the better. That's why this year, for Fantasy Fest 2008 I decided to be a raven. That was about six months ago. Now, with just a few days left I have given up and will go with the pieces I did buy here and there. I will still call myself a raven, only now it's impressionistic.

Locals I've talked to are not enthusiastic about Fantasy Fest. I guess year after year it loses its shine. If you just go to look, then I can understand why it goes stale. Drunk people in scimpy clothing is only interesting for so long. But if you go to Fantasy Fest to participate, wear a great costume and have fun, well how can that ever get old and boring?

Of course you have to have a little bit of exhibitionist in you. Or even if you don't, you can wear a mask and be somebody else. That's the beauty! Costumes can hide your identity while you behave outrageously.

One local said it's weird to go and see friends of daughters of friends in such scimpy clothing. He will just go and have dinner on a balcony and watch from above for a few hours. Another local just didn't want to talk about why, but said she doesn't care about it. Another said she's boycotting it altogether, perhaps because of some body issues she's having lately. I have yet to find a local who is excited for Fantasy Fest 2008.

Key West Body Paint

Key West body paint might be the largest single phenomenon that makes Fantasy Fest one of the largest events of the year. Body paint is often the costume of choice for a lot of people attending Fantasy Fest. It's a great way to go naked without really exposing everything you have. Key West body paint is an art form, and indeed body paint artists come to town for this major event. Local tatoo artists get in on the body paint action as well, applying their craft to more than just one medium. The styles and skills range from pretty good to truly amazing. I saw some body paint costumes that I thought were actual cloth costumes at first glance.

If body painting is done by an expert artist, the paint will look like really tight clothing. Even denim. I saw a woman wearing a western theme body paint costume, with red tied shirt on top and cutoff denim shorts on the bottom. You could tell the shirt was paint but the shorts looked real. Lots of women chose to have lingerie painted on. How to get a perfect fit...use body paint!

Sometimes Key West body paint becomes a show when artists apply their craft in a storefront window. Some nights during Fantasty Fest, for example, you can stroll past Fast Buck Freddie's, a gift store famous for its large display windows and ever-changing displays created by local artists. It's kind of like the windows at Macy's in New York at Christmastime. Anyway, during Fantasy Fest, they get a Key West body paint artist to paint willing and daring customers right in the display window. It's a tight squeeze, but the customer sits on a stool with her back to the street and the body paint artist applies the "costume". It's a spectacle and of course there's always a small crowd watching.

Fantasy Fest 2007

Fantasy Fest 2007 was a blast. It was my first Key West Fantasy Fest, and what I can say is I'm already counting the days until Fantasy Fest 2008. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas to roll around again. It's a week long series of opportunities to become somebody completely different, or at least dress up in a totally different style and become as freaky, sexy, or magical as you can. Only your imagination will limit you. If you've never been to Fantasy Fest, it's really kind of difficult to imagine what it's like, and even more difficult to picture yourself dressing up in costume. If Fantasy Fest 2007 was your first time, then you
most definitely saw some inspiring costumes and body paint. If you were like me, you felt the vibe and joined in the fun and dressed up yourself.

The theme of Fantasy Fest 2007 was something about the mad hatter and being late, kind of Alice and Wonderland I think. It was a tough theme to follow, but most people did their best with Queen of Hearts costumes. There were a bunch of women who chose this costume, but that kind of left most men without a theme costume idea, except if they wanted to be a mad hatter or a late rabbit. In any case, most of the costumes I saw during Fantasy Fest 2007 didn't follow the grand theme. People were more likely to go as their own
personal fantasy, or to dress according to which party they were attending that night.

Each night of Fantasy Fest there are several themed parties sponsored by local Key West bars. For example there's the Plaid Party at Captain Tony's Saloon. Then there's the Toga party at Sloppy Joe's on Duval Street.
There's also the Red Party at Fogarty's, and the PJ's and Lingerie Party at another local Key West bar on Duval Street. There were also some new parties for Fantasy Fest 2007, including the Green Party at a local Irish bar, off Duval Street. The Red Party seems to be one of the favorites, as is the PJs and Lingerie Party. You see lots of devils at the Red Party of course, and well lingerie and PJs is an easy costume.

The theme parties at the Duval Street bars usually spill out into the street. The Plaid party at Captain Tony's Saloon is on a side street just off Duval, and the Key West Police block off the street so there's lots of room for Plaid people. As the week wears on, and more people show up in Key West, Duval Street is blocked off for pedestrian use every single day and night. Vendors line the streets, along with artists hawking their items. The crowds build and build and the town's population swells to triple its normal size. Fantasy Fest 2007 was no exception, with 60,000 people in town. By Saturday night, the night of the big parade event, it was
hard to press on through the crowds. If you had a Fantasy Fest costume with wings, good luck. There simply wasn't room! Good advice for Fantasy Fest 2008: don't wear any costume that incorporate wings or anything else that sticks way out. It won't survive the night.

Fantasy Fest Plaid Party

Fantasy Fest in key West is probably the biggest event of the year. What started out as a way to drum up business in the off season of Key West has become a nationally known event that's famous for good times, outlandish behavior, and zany adult antics that feature body paint, elaborate costumes, and lots of nudity. What more could you ask for? Like Mardis Gras, Fantasy Fest has beads and topless women, but it's better. That's because Fantasy Fest is smaller and less famous, so it hasn't been overrun by problems such as crime waves and a disproportionate number of loutish drunken people who spoil the fun. Yes, Fantasy Fest is partly fueled by drugs and alchohol, but you can still feel safe at night, even the final Saturday night when the crowds swell and out of towners flood the city and things get raucous. It's still fun and safe and probably nobody will pick your pocket or mug you.

Fantasy Fest starts out on a Tuesday night, with the Plaid Party at Captain Tony's Saloon, just of Duval Street. Even if you don't plan on paying to get into Captain Tony's, and you just want to hang out in the street and enjoy the fun, my advice is to wear plaid. Once you get downtown and see the great sexy costumes people come up with, you'll want to get into the spirit of things. Even if it's just a plaid pair of shorts or a plain bikini. One of the most popular plaid outfits for girls was a micro mini skirt with pleats, as short as can be. One of the coolest outfits was a plaid corset, worn with a white mile-high Louis XIV wig. Awesome! Another good one was a woman body builder who wore just an itsy bitsy plaid bikini.

Around 9pm or so, the Key West Police block off the side street where Captain Tony's Saloon is located, off Duval Street, so the Plaid Party can spill out into the street area. People in plaid mill about, comment on each others' costumes, take pictures with each other, have some drinks or some vendor food, and it's a great atmosphere. You can't help but feel the energy. As the night wears on, more and more plaid people come out and the costumes get more daring.

Fantasy Fest

Fantasy Fest is one of the best things about Key West. The coral reef is the best thing, hands down, but
Fantasy Fest comes in at a strong second. No other place in the country do you get a week long festival that
inspires so much adult creativity, so much baudy good fun and such energized street life. The atmosphere is
contagious because everyone is in such a good mood so you just can't help getting into the spirit of things.
The energy is positive and fun, and even those not used to even wearing a bathing suit in public will feel less
inhibitions at Fantasy Fest. I'd say a third to half the people in the streets are either scantily clad or
topless altogether. It's like going to a topless beach. If everyone is doing it, it's no big deal and you can
just be one of the crowd. Unlike Mardis Gras, nobody will grab you. Almost all of the women going topless are
also body painted, so it's an art form for people to admire. And they do admire. Strangers approach topless
strangers and complement them. Sometimes they ask if they can take a picture. It't nothing invasive or rude,
and everyone that wears a costume or body paint is fine with having their picture taken. If you aren't cool
about photos, then you really shouldn't dress up and go to Fantasy Fest. Of course exhibitionists love
it! A lot of the pictures end up on the internet. Just do a search for Fantasy Fest photos.

Fantasy Fest Pet Parade & Masquerade

For a change of pace during Fantasy Fest, the Pet Parade is kid-friendly, and pets are the center of attention. Pet owners dress up with their pets and parade around onstage to compete and donate money to pet charities. The best part of the show is the sidelines, where pets and owners mill around and wait their turn. The stage antics are silly and embarrassing to watch and you can't see anyway, so the real show is down in the crowd.

People dress their dogs up in the most ridiculously silly costumes, you have to laugh. There's probably a hot dog dog costume every year. Still funny! We love it!

The show starts out with the kid-pet combinations, then moves on to the adult-pet contestants. This year there was an adorable gray weimaramer as part of a tea party ensemble. Then there was a girl who shaved her dog in zebra patterns and dressed up as a lion, to represent animals of Africa! Totally spectacular!

The Fantasy Fest Pet Masquerade and Parade takes place at the Westin Resort on Front Street, behind the hotel facing the water. They put up a stage and try to keep people moving so nobody gets to stand in front and watch. Some people get there early and get tables at the restaurant in front of the stage. They can't see anything either because of all the people walking in front of them. Like I said, the best show is the sidelines where contestants are waiting for their turn on stage. You can actually talk to them while they wait, ask them about their costumes, congratulate them, pet the dogs. There was a chicken lady with a rooster in her arms, and there was a guy who entered some lobsters. For the most part, it's dogs.

Goombay, Fantasy Fest Kickoff

Friday and Saturday October 19 and 20 is Goombay, a street festival in Key West's Bahama Village. It's a celebration of Caribbean food plus some live music at night.

If you're from Key West, then Goombay is probably fun because you can walk up and down the street in Bahama Village and see everyone you know. Goombay activities include strolling up and down Petronia Street, which is lined with food vendors, then maybe stopping at the end and catching some live music from the sound stage. You're bound to run into everyone at some point in the long hot tunnel of food and the occasional African pottery vendor. It's a good chance to get out and see your neighbors.

For the visitor, Goombay offers the chance to crawl up and down Petronia Street rather than Duval Street. It's a change of pace from the regular hot sticky trudge. You can buy some $5 Arepas, which are from South America. You can buy a mushy stale soft pretzel for $3 (or $4 if you don't count your change). You can buy undercooked chicken on a stick for $5. Then you can top it all off with a $12 drink that's served in a pineapple. But do arepas qualify as Caribbean food? How about fried rice? As for a celebration of Caribbean culture, well it's hard to know where that is. Was it at the jerk chicken booth? Does buying food from a vendor count as celebrating? I feel more Caribbean just eating out at Jamaican Me Hungry on any given day.

On the other hand, the live music was great, and the warm up guy did a great job of getting everyone into the swing of things. Here he is. You definitely can't go wrong with live reggae!

The best thing about Goombay is that it's the official start of Fantasy Fest, which is the biggest week of the year in Key West. The crowds aren't here yet (60,000 people are supposed to arrive for Fantasy Fest), but many people attending Goombay are already in the spirit of things. You will see people prematurely wearing beads, some people in costume. Fantasy Fest is so much fun they just couldn't wait to get started. It's the spirit of Fantasy Fest and the live music that infuses Goombay with energy, not the elusive "Celebration of Caribbean Culture".