Our live updates for Gasparilla 2025 have concluded. Read more about the festivities here. TAMPA — Shiver me timbers: It was an especially cold morning for those pesky pirates invading Tampa again, but it warmed up as the festivities progressed Saturday.

Gasparilla became a time-honored tradition in 1904 after local planners decided to make the legend of Gasparilla into the theme for that year's May Day celebration, said Gasparill

Every year, an estimated 300,000 participants come to Tampa for the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a mock attack by a band of pirates called Ye Mystic Krewe. The pirates’ plot is simple: storm the shores, take the city’s key, and parade down Bayshore Boulevard.