Fantasy Fest Complaints To Get New Airing In February

By Pru Sowers

Konk Life Staff Writer

A potential showdown between organizers of Fantasy Fest and others wanting to clamp down on the week-long bacchanalia will take place in early 2016.

Although complaints are registered each year about nudity and lewd behavior on the part of a few attendees of Fantasy Fest, there is an opening for those complaints to have more impact because the five-year contract between the city and the Key West Tourist Development Association (TDA) expired after this year’s event, which ran from Oct. 23-Nov. 1. Key West City Manager Jim Scholl has tentatively set Feb. 11 for a city commission workshop to discuss whether to renew the TDA contract.

The workshop will be open to the public to provide input to commissioners on Fantasy Fest events and a new contract with TDA or, possibly, another promoter. TDA owns the rights to the name Fantasy Fest and has hired The Market Share Company, a local firm, to produce Fantasy Fest since 1990.

Former City Commissioner Henry Bethel organized a group of residents about a year ago to actively complain to city commissioners about nudity at Fantasy Fest. He has shown up at commission meetings with photographs of partially nude participants taken, he said, at last year’s Fest events such as the parade.

“Mayor and Commissioners, please help us clean up our city and regain the respect we deserve,” Bethel wrote in a letter to the commission last Spring.

After the February workshop, Scholl will get individual input from commissioners and draw up a contract for their review. Currently, there seems to be little interest from city officials in forcing TDA out or even making significant changes in how nudity is handled. Current city ordinance allows women to be nude above the waist as long as their breasts are painted. Neither men or women are allowed to show their genitals or engage in public sex acts.

Scholl pointed out that there were no arrests this year for lewd behavior and that most of the nudity was contained in the “Fantasy Fest district,” an area largely contained to Duval Street where much of the event crowd seems to congregate.

“Every time there was an issue when they [event attendees] were told to cover up, they did. The crowd was pretty well behaved overall,” Scholl said about this year’s event, adding that there were no arrests for lewd behavior.

While newly-elected Commissioner Richard Payne said he personally doesn’t like the painted nudity, he supports keeping it contained within the Fantasy Fest district. And there was less nudity at this year’s event, he said.

“I think they got a good handle on what they can do. The present laws are good enough to let police officers take care of things,” Payne said recently.

While the nudity issue may be losing traction, another concern regarding the TDA contract will definitely come up “big time,” said Commissioner Clayton Lopez. The just-expired contract called for the TDA to pay the city for police, clean-up and other maintenance services provided in connection with Fantasy Fest. But the amount paid does not cover how much the city actually spends on Fest services, Lopez said. In the 2011-2015 contract, TDA paid the city up to a capped amount starting at $55,750 a year with three percent increases each year.

Various city departments including police/fire and the department of public works are in the process of calculating what they actually spent in staff hours and equipment for Fantasy Fest. Those reports are not finalized yet but Lopez said the initial numbers are startling.

“Even with round numbers, we’re talking about a $120,000 difference,” he said. “If it’s a major difference between what the city spends, they [TDA] are going to have to pay more for what they use.”

However, if the final cost estimates are not too much higher than what TDA pays the city, Lopez said he would be in favor of letting it slide because Fantasy Fest is a huge tourist draw, benefiting local businesses.

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