On Saturday January 22, one of the country’s largest outdoor celebrations began. Gasparilla has been held in Tampa, Fla. each year since 1904, celebrating with a pirate invasion and parades. At the parades, there are over 100 floats present filled with pirates and crew members tossing plastic beads for viewers to catch and wear. 

Considering the parade is 4.5 miles long, each float is going to need tons of beads to toss out. This week, crews including Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla (YMKG) will be preparing each float to be running and filled with many items to be thrown. 

Inside the YMKG warehouse, boxes filled with beads and toys are ready to be distributed to the floats and vehicles included in the parade. At the beginning of this week, the Krewe started to bring new vehicles to the warehouse used to pull floats along the parade. Before the parade begins, floats need to be tested to make sure they can run through the whole parade. 

Before the parades, the Krewe goes through a safety check for each float. This includes checking tire pressures, making sure generators run well, painting touch-ups, electrical checks (water pumps/smoke machines), handrails on each float, and putting equipment on the floats and in vehicles.

When all the preparing is finished, the Krewe sets out the floats being used in the parade, outside of their warehouse. After floats are filled, crews line up their floats on Bayshore and get ready to flow through the parade.

This photo gallery is a collection of photos from the warehouse.

Gallery • 7 Photos

Photo Izzy Rivers

"Skull and Treasures"