Accompanied by hundreds of private boats and firing a continuous barrage of loud mini-cannons, Gaspar's motley band make their way to the Tampa Convention Center, where they meet the mayor and demand the key to the city in a playful ceremony.

YMKG then stages a 4.5-mile-long (7.2 km) victory parade down Bayshore Boulevard featuring over 100 floats, marching bands and other live entertainers, and dozens of additional krewes and community organizations.

[14] In addition to the krewes, high school and university marching bands and drill teams often participate, and many local businesses and organizations build and enter their own elaborate floats from which they also throw trinkets to the crowd.

[16] As the festivities have become larger and more complicated over the years, YMKG has accepted corporate sponsorships to defray costs and has employed local firm EventFest to plan the parade with the city.

[18] Besides the Gasparilla parades and holding its own private events, YMKG raises money for various charitable causes and annually endows several college scholarships through its community fund.

Plastic beads like those at New Orleans Mardi Gras festivities are by far the most prevalent item, with varieties ranging from simple single-color necklaces to intricate and expensive designs, most of which are purchased by krewe members themselves.

[26] So many beads are thrown that in recent years, the city has organized post-parade volunteer cleanup efforts which annually collect thousands of pounds of plastic from the parade route and nearby Tampa Bay.

While pirates on foot are no longer allowed to use firearms during the parade, trained members of YMKG still fire loud mini-cannons from several specialized floats and during the cross-bay voyage of the Jose Gasparilla II.

Children of krewe members don costumes and ride on the floats tossing beads and trinkets to the crowd, and local youth organizations such as sports and dance teams also participate, usually performing along the route.

[43] To add noise to the festivities, the pirate ship Jose Gasparilla usually sails nearby firing its mini-cannons during the parade, and the day ends with a fireworks display over Tampa Bay.

[56][57] Most of the expense is paid by YMKG through memberships dues, vendor fees, tickets for premium seating areas, and corporate sponsorships, with the city redeploying police and other staff and resources to limit its financial contribution.

[57][59] To promote the area's many springtime events, Visit Tampa Bay, the local tourist bureau, has run multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns across the United States, Canada, and Europe encouraging visitors to experience "Gasparilla Season".

[3] Whatever his origins, the legends agree that Gaspar fled to the virtually uninhabited southwestern coast of Spanish Florida in the 1780s and established his "pirate kingdom" on Gasparilla Island in Charlotte Harbor, south of Tampa Bay.

His exploits came to a sudden end in 1821 when, to avoid being captured by the U.S. Navy pirate hunting schooner the USS Enterprise, he wrapped himself in anchor chains and threw himself overboard while shouting, "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's!

[3] Also, despite the fact that the supposed location of Gaspar's "regal base" at Gasparilla Island has been developed into the resort town of Boca Grande, no artifacts or other physical evidence of the hideout, his ship, or his lost treasure has ever been found in southwest Florida despite years of searching by amateur and professional treasure-seekers.

[3][60][63] The brochure was penned by publicist Pat Lemoyne, who combined and embellished regional tall tales attributed to well-known and recently deceased local fishing guide "Panther John" Gomez to create the legend of the pirate Gaspar.

Years later, Lemoyne gave a local history lecture in which he admitted that he had written the Gasparilla story "in a style that tourists like to hear" but that it was "without a true fact in it.

"[64] In 1923, author Francis Bradlee obtained a copy of the Gasparilla Inn brochure and, assuming it was factual, included Gaspar in a book he was writing about piracy in the West Indies.

[65] This error led to José Gaspar being mentioned in several additional non-fiction books about piracy and Florida history, causing ongoing confusion as to the authenticity of the legend.

[12] The old wooden ship was in serious need of repairs and renovation by the early 1950s, so with financial assistance from the city of Tampa and the local chamber of commerce, YMKG commissioned a $100,000 replacement.

[67] Though designed to resemble an 18th-century West Indiaman, the Jose Gasparilla II is actually a 137-foot-long (42 m), 36-foot-wide (11 m) steel barge to which tall masts, a bowsprit, and other decorative elements have been added.

[69] The Jose Gasparilla II has crossed Tampa Bay to lead every invasion since its launching except in 1971, when bad weather and rough seas canceled the flotilla, though not the parade.

The construction of the Tampa Crosstown Expressway in 1976 ended that tradition, as the 100-foot (30 m) masts of the Jose Gasparilla II do not fit under the highway where it bridges the river near its mouth.

For several decades, the parade route ended at Plant Field where the Florida State Fair was taking place, drawing more attendees to the simultaneous events.

[33] The fair moved to much larger grounds east of Tampa in 1976, but the parade route has usually remained the same, traveling north up Bayshore Boulevard and ending in or near downtown, approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) in total.

[4][18][72] Since 2005, the parade has been held on the last Saturday in January except in 2021, when all major events of the Gasparilla Season were canceled due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[80] Leading members of Tampa's Latin community formed the Krewe of the Knights of Sant' Yago in 1972 and organized their own parade in Ybor City beginning in 1974.

[84] As former Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn later reflected, "You had this huge ... public debate about the role of the Krewe of Gasparilla, but the larger issue was making sure that everyone had a seat at the table, particularly African Americans.

Rainy weather helped to dampen the crowds for the event, which some observers considered a "flop" whiile others hailed it as a step toward a more inclusive local community.

[85][89] Though "Supersized Gasparilla" was well received and was seen as a sign of the community's social progress, the city has opted not to repeat the schedule change when hosting subsequent Super Bowls due to the serious challenges posed by large crowds and snarled traffic across downtown and South Tampa.