Tampa’s Gasparilla pirate festival: Attendees wary after deadly New Orleans attack

Image via Fresh Take Florida.

As Tampa prepares for its annual Gasparilla pirate festival on Saturday — Florida’s own version of Mardi Gras — potential attendees are rethinking their plans following the attack in New Orleans earlier this month.

The Tampa festival is known for its costumes, excessive drinking and parade that mimics a pirate invasion of the waterfront city. The driver of the truck responsible for the terror attack in New Orleans, who killed 14 people, visited Tampa twice before his rampage, the FBI said.

The news has left former attendees like Sabina Gilman, 26, wary of attending. Gilman moved to Tampa in 2022 and attended the pirate festival the last two years with a group of about 16 women.

“Everyone’s drinking. It’s a fun time, massive crowds, like something that I never envisioned,” she said.

When she heard the man responsible for the terror attack in New Orleans visited Tampa for three days in October 2024, Gilman decided to opt out of this year’s festivities. The FBI said earlier this month it didn’t know why the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, came to Tampa and said there is no evidence he met with anyone of any significance there.

“It’s an uneasy feeling knowing that we were on the target list,” she said. “And then Gasparilla is such a sought out event with hundreds and thousands of people in attendance.”

The annual pirate festival attracts more than 300,000 attendees. Tampa’s population is about 403,000.

What scares Gilman is navigating swarms of drunken parade goers without means of communicating. She said even finding people during the event is challenging.

“One, the city is gridlocked and two, there’s very, very poor cell reception because of the amount of people that are in the city.” Gilman said.

First-time Gasparilla attendee Lianna Paton, 21, a University of South Florida student, said she understands people’s concerns but thinks there will be enough security to offset any risk.

Molly Gruber, also 21, shares Paton’s sentiment. She moved to Tampa in 2023 and went to Gasparilla for the first time last year. She thinks the security measures that city leaders have put in place are enough to ward off any potential threats.

“There’s always going to be large events,” Paton said. “So, I just think keeping the security up and being conscious of it, but not letting that stop community from coming together. Because I think that would ultimately be the worst outcome.”

She said it’s exciting for the community to come together and celebrate after a difficult hurricane season.

”It’s also just a way of people coming together and celebrating Tampa Bay and being really proud of the area and kind of our local community, especially with the past two hurricanes,” she said. “It’s been really stressful on our local economy and the community.”

Others are taking a more cautious approach. Gabriella Dellasala, 24, a graphic design student at USF, said she and her friends plan to stay away from the parade due to safety concerns.

“My friends and I decided to kind of avoid the parade and avoid, like, the crazy crowds this year,” Dellasala said. “And just do something on the outskirts so we can still experience it because it is a real issue.”

Dellasala had attended Gasparilla four times and was originally not planning to go this year.

“In my honest opinion, I don’t think this year is worth going to just with everything that’s going on,” said Dellasala in a TikTok post. She changed her mind when she and her friends were scheduled not to work Saturday, which is rare, she said.

Savannah Alldaffer, 27, of Tampa has attended the past three Gasparillas and said she’s always felt safe at the event.

Alldaffer was in Ybor City, one of Tampa’s historic neighborhoods, when a deadly shooting happened outside a nightclub before Halloween two years ago, killing two people and injuring 16 others. She wasn’t hurt.

“You obviously hope that it doesn’t happen where you’re going and you try to just take the precautionary steps,” she said.

Although she isn’t as concerned about safety, this year, she plans to stick to house parties along Bayshore Boulevard, away from the crowds.

Julianne Cranwell, 20, a University of Florida student who grew up in Tampa, said Gasparilla’s history is rooted in bringing people together and connecting with Tampa’s history as a port. She said the fear surrounding the social event this year is unfortunate.

“It’s the reality that we’re in,” Cranwell said.

Cranwell and Gilman both know people who are attending despite the anxiety surrounding this year’s festivities.

Gilman said about half her friends are still going to Gasparilla. Her group already had the day planned and outfits picked for the pirate festival.

“I might have a little bit of FOMO,” she said, a popular shorthand for fear of missing out on fun activities.

After talking to others who also worried about their safety, Gilman said it helped solidify her decision.

“I don’t want to put myself into that mess,” she said.

Tampa’s Police Chief, Lee Bercaw, said law enforcement will be monitoring the parade from the air and on boat, as well as through camera surveillance in Tampa’s crime center. Police are working with 30 other agencies including the FBI, Coast Guard and the State Fire Marshal.

Gasparilla will have medical and fire personnel stationed throughout the parade, according to Todd Alt, assistant chief of operations for Tampa’s Fire Rescue. There will also be medical personnel on foot, bike and boat to help with patient care and treatment.

Temperatures will be unseasonably cold, in the 40s on Saturday morning with a high around 62 in the afternoon.

When Gilman attended the party last year, she saw heavy security presence throughout the parade but no medical tents. She also said Tampa’s use of aerial surveillance is new and did not notice helicopters last year.

Gasparilla, which dates to 1904, shut down in 2021 due to the pandemic. Historian Melissa Sullebarger said that there has always been a relationship between what she called “a carousing of public liveliness and Gasparilla.”

In the early years of Gasparilla, she said authorities carted around a mobile drunk tank. There were often fights, damage to public property and public urination. Law enforcement’s focus was different in Gasparilla’s early years.

“Public safety, of course, is absolutely a huge concern now,” she said.

Sullebarger grew up in Tampa. She attended the children’s version of Gasparilla, marched with her high school band during the pirate parade and studied Gasparilla’s long history for the past four years through her role as curator of education for the Henry B. Plant Museum.

She stopped attending three years ago — because of her personal experiences with growing crowds. She won’t be there this year, either.

“The city and everybody involved with keeping the event safe are doing their absolute best in achieving that this year.”

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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.