Florida Major Recurring Festivals and Their Next Dates

Florida's long-running recurring festivals for the 2026 to 2027 season run from Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach, October 15 to 18, 2026, to the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival in Fernandina Beach, which closes May 2, 2027.

The dates in the table come from each organizer or from a government calendar. The City of Daytona Beach lists Bike Week for March 5 to 14, 2027 on its special events calendar (City of Daytona Beach). Gasparilla Pirate Fest in Tampa is set for January 30, 2027, one week after Children's Gasparilla on January 23 (Gasparilla Pirate Fest). The Florida State Fair posts its 2027 run as February 4 to 15 at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa (Florida State Fair). Carnaval Miami lists the Calle Ocho Music Festival for March 14, 2027, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., as a free event on Calle Ocho between SW 12th and 27th Avenue (Carnaval Miami).

Gasparilla, Calle Ocho and the Florida State Fair each get fuller treatment in the Digital Towns guides to Florida annual cultural events and Florida historic pageants and fairs, and the large art shows and music weekends sit in the Florida art and music festivals guide. This page stays with the long-running festivals that fill a whole town for days: the Plant City strawberry fair, the two Daytona Beach motorcycle rallies, the Apalachicola seafood weekend and the Fernandina Beach shrimp festival. Together they reach statewide, from the Panhandle at Apalachicola to the Atlantic coast at Daytona Beach and Fernandina Beach, and inland to Plant City, listed with a March fair on the FDACS statewide fair list (FDACS). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on each festival organizer's website and the City of Daytona Beach website.

The 2027 Florida Strawberry Festival runs 11 days, March 4 to March 14, 2027, in Plant City, with gate admission of $15 for adults and $5 for children ages 6 to 12 (Florida Strawberry Festival).

Children 5 and under get in free with a paid adult. Discount gate tickets at participating Publix stores in Central Florida cost $10 for adults and $4 for children, on sale from February 1 through March 14 (admission page). The Amscot Main Ticket Gate, Gate 1, opens daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Accessible parking costs $10 in the Red Parking Lot across from Gate 14 or across from Gate 1 on West Oak Avenue. The Plant City grounds are at 303 BerryFest Place, and the ticket office number is 813.754.1996.

Westbound drivers headed to Plant City on Interstate 4 leave at exit 17, Forbes Road, and head south to Highway 574 (MLK Boulevard) and east to the festival area; eastbound drivers leave at exit 22, Park Road, or exit 21, Buchman Highway and Alexander Street, and follow Alexander Street to Reynolds Street and the grounds (directions page). No alcohol is sold anywhere on the festival grounds, and bottles, cans, coolers and picnic baskets are not allowed through the gates (festival FAQs).

The festival began in 1930, when members of the newly organized Plant City Lions Club planned an event to celebrate the strawberry harvest. American Legion Post 26 helped revive it in 1948 after a six-year pause during and just after World War II, and the festival says it has never been subsidized by taxpayers (festival history). More than 10,000 acres of strawberries are planted each year around Plant City, and the organizer counts some 2,800 farms in Hillsborough County growing fruit and vegetable crops. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services lists the Florida Strawberry Festival, Plant City, among the state's March fairs (FDACS).

Daytona Beach hosts two motorcycle rallies a year: Biketoberfest runs October 15 to 18, 2026, and Bike Week 2027 runs March 5 to 14, 2027 (City of Daytona Beach).

The city describes Bike Week as a 10-day event of festivals, concerts, bike shows and street parties, and the 2026 edition, February 27 to March 8, was its 85th year (City of Daytona Beach). The Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce runs the official Bike Week site, which calls 2027 the rally's 86th anniversary and counts more than 200 properties and 12,000 rooms in the Daytona Beach area (Official Bike Week). The city says Biketoberfest draws more than 100,000 motorcycle enthusiasts each fall.

Biketoberfest 2026 is the 34th edition, and the Daytona Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau describes it as a collection of activities at venues and businesses in cities throughout Volusia County (Biketoberfest). The bureau lists motorcycle racing at Daytona International Speedway among the four-day rally's draws, and the Official Biketoberfest Welcome Center sits trackside at the speedway. The same city calendar puts the 2027 Daytona 500 and Speedweeks on February 17 to 21, which places the speedway's biggest week only days before Bike Week opens.

Businesses and property owners who want to take part in rally activities apply under a city master plan. The Official Bike Week site reported that the City of Daytona Beach began accepting Bike Week 2026 master plan applications on Monday, October 20, 2025 (Official Bike Week). The city has also drafted changes to its master plan guidelines for the biker events, including approval of the master plan by the City Manager, an online review process and proposed increases in application and itinerant vendor fees, and took public comments through Friday, January 3, 2025 (City of Daytona Beach notice). Daytona Beach City Hall is at 301 S. Ridgewood Avenue, phone 386-671-8400 (City of Daytona Beach).

The 63rd Florida Seafood Festival takes place November 6 and 7, 2026, at Battery Park in downtown Apalachicola, at the mouth of the Apalachicola River in Franklin County (Florida Seafood Festival).

On Friday, November 6, Battery Park opens at 10 a.m. with no admission charge, the Blessing of the Fleet follows at 4 p.m., and the park closes at 10:30 p.m. On Saturday, November 7, the Redfish Run starts at 8 a.m., the gates open at 10 a.m. with $10 admission and free entry for children under 12, and the parade starts at 10 a.m. on Highway 98 (2026 schedule). The oyster shucking contest starts at 1 p.m. and the oyster eating contest at 1:15 p.m., with blue crab races for children under 12 at the top of each hour from 1 to 5 p.m.

The Apalachicola organizer bills the weekend as Florida's oldest maritime event, and its board reminds visitors that no pets are allowed in the festival except service animals, and asks campers traveling with a pet to walk it only in their designated camping area. Sponsors named on the festival site include the Franklin County Tourist Development Council and the Florida Department of Agriculture. The festival office answers at 850-653-4720 (Florida Seafood Festival).

The 62nd Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival in Fernandina Beach opens with a parade on Thursday, April 29, 2027, and runs as a festival from April 30 through May 2, 2027 (Shrimp Festival hours).

The Fernandina Beach parade steps off at 6 p.m. on April 29, rain or shine. On Friday, April 30, waterfront food booths open from 3 to 10 p.m. and a pirate invasion at 9 p.m. is followed by fireworks. The festival runs from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 1, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 2 (Shrimp Festival hours).

For the 2026 Amelia Island festival, organizers ran a free shuttle loop from a Park and Ride lot at Fernandina Beach High School, 435 Citrona Drive, to Central Park at 1201 Atlantic Avenue, to downtown at Alachua Street and 2nd Street, and to uptown at Centre Street and 8th Street. The ride was free, but a parking fee applied at the official lots, and the service was made possible with support from Blue Sky of Amelia, Blackrock Baptist Church and the Amelia Island Tourist Development Council (Shrimp Festival parking).

Pages for Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach, the Plant City strawberry fair and the Fernandina Beach shuttle still showed last season's details on October 15, 2026, so this guide uses the newest dates each posts.

The City of Daytona Beach Biker Events page still lists Biketoberfest 2025, October 16 to 19, 2025 (Biker Events page), while the city's special events calendar already shows October 15 to 18, 2026, and lists Biketoberfest 2027 as TBD (Special Events calendar). The Plant City admission page shows 2027 festival dates but still labels its hours block with the March 2026 dates (Florida Strawberry Festival). The Fernandina Beach shuttle page still describes the 2026 shuttle hours, so the 2027 Shrimp Festival shuttle schedule had not been posted (Shrimp Festival parking).

March 2027 stacks three major events on one stretch of the calendar. The Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City runs March 4 to 14, Daytona Beach Bike Week runs March 5 to 14, and the Calle Ocho Music Festival falls on March 14, the closing day of both. The Daytona Beach calendar also lists Jeep Beach for April 16 to 25, 2027 (City of Daytona Beach).