Ultimate Key West fantasy starts Oct. 17

It's a festival like no other.

When Key West's Fantasy Fest kicks off Oct. 17, it will begin a 10-day celebration of the outrageous. Perhaps 70,000 people — at least three times the city's population — will join in the agenda of outlandish events, uninhibited partying and general craziness.

Don't bring the kids. Fantasy Fest is an adult festival.

And despite its timing, neither is it a Halloween event, though costumes are a big part of it.

Some get-ups are really extraordinary.

"One year I came as a 14-foot-high mushroom, with windows in the stem and characters looking out of them,'' said Susann d'Antonio, who has won many festival costume contests over the years, including the premier competition, Pretenders in Paradise, whose first prize is $10,000. "Last year, I was the Queen of Hearts and had a giant toad leaping ahead of me.''

Joe Liska, one of the originators of the festival in 1979, remembers a King Kong float that had a huge gorilla with red eyes holding a screaming Fay Wray in his hand. "Then there was a float on two flatbed trucks, literally a circus, complete with flying trapeze and animals.''

More than a few costumes —perhaps non-costumes might be a better description — are X-rated, which is one reason why this is billed as an adult festival. Some outfits cover little and expose a lot. Body painting has become popular, particularly in the Home-Made Bikini event, the Epidermal Arts and Torso Tapestries Contest and the Living Airbrush Expo, where the only "clothing'' may be paint.

Of course, the official position is less permissive.

At the climactic Captain Morgan Fantasy Fest Parade on the festival's final night, participants must wear tops and bottoms, said Linda O'Brien, who coordinates the festival. However, observers say that as soon as the Key West police are out of sight, off come the tops.

"It's not a big deal, unless you're uptight about that,'' Liska said.

That's the kind of laid-back, let-it-all-hang-out attitude that Liska says has contributed to the success of the festival. "People who come here like to dress up, relax and have fun.''

That they do. There's a lot of carousing, day and night. "It's our biggest week of the year,'' said Donna Edwards, brand manager of Key West's legendary Sloppy Joe's bar. The bar, which stays open until 4 a.m., stages one of the festival's more popular events, an annual Toga Party. "Girls wear sexy outfits, men more the gladiator-type,'' Edwards said.

Costumes are everywhere, and not just worn by participants in the parade and many costume events. Perhaps a quarter of visitors come with their own costumes or rent them, Liska said, and there are those who simply devise an impromptu outfit.

Satire is also an integral part of the fete. With the festival coming just two weeks before the presidential election, this year's theme, "Pirates, Pundits and Political Party Animals,'' is expected to draw some particularly pointed scenarios in the 72-unit Fantasy Fest Parade on Oct. 25.

No hint yet what those might be — float creators and costume contestants tend to keep their designs secret as long as possible.

If that's not enough to intrigue visitors, the festival has 40 events all told, including such diverse activities as a Celebrity Look-Alike Contest, a Masquerade March that sees 2,000 step out from a cemetery, a Pet Masquerade for which dogs and cats don fancy outfits, a skimpy Pajama and Lingerie Party, a couple of street fairs and a final-day tea dance whimsically titled "The Fat Lady Sings.''

Jay Clarke, former travel editor of the Miami Herald, is a freelance writer based in Coral Gables.