Feb. 27 O.B. Seafood Fest raises funds for MAAAC

Feb. 27 O.B. Seafood Fest raises funds for MAAAC

By John Mullen
With a little over three weeks to go before the Feb. 27 Orange Beach Seafood Festival, coordinator Jeanne Fitzgibbons received a call that equipment would be installed before the festival to begin roof repairs on the Wharf Condos located along Wharf Parkway. This would mean the Parkway could not be used.
“The repairs are related to Hurricane Sally and all the stuff that’s gone on across the area with everybody trying to get back in service,” Fitzgibbons said. “The condos at The Wharf had extensive roof damage that’s got to be repaired. The only way to get up on that roof is with cranes and they would have to be in the street.”
What at first presented a daunting challenge to Fitzgibbons became an opportunity to step back and look at her options and come up with what she believes is an even better layout for the festival. After getting the planning settled, the crane work was moved to after the festival but she’s sticking with the new plan she really likes.
“When I first heard about it, I thought ‘I’m gonna be sick,’” Fitzgibbons said of losing Wharf Parkway to the cranes. “I’ve got three weeks here. But then I thought ‘let’s put a different spin on this and see.’ I had already downsized my number of booths because of COVID and trying to space people out further. With that in mind I wasn’t dealing with as many booths as I normally would be anyway.
“I’m staying with the new layout as I believe it will make the Wharf traffic flow much better for everyone.”
Music lineup for the Orange Beach, Alabama, Seafood Festival’s Main Street Stage.
She decided to swap places with the car show and the vendor booths by putting the vendors in the parking lot between the theater and the Beach Express and moving the cars to Main Street’s two lanes.
“Now I think it’s a good thing,” she said. “In trying to make this work I looked at aerials of the property and talked with many people and discussed how it would flow – and it’s going to work – We’re going to pick up the entire festival and move it. Arts and crafts, food, stage and moving it off of Main Street over to this parking area.”
Once she put boots on the ground and explored the options, she became encouraged that it could hold the same number of booths, had space to separate them and could even keep setup traffic flowing better.
“What it does for me instead of giving me just two rows I can do multiple rows because this is a parking area,” she said. “When you get over there and look at it, it’s quite large. Normally, for me, I’m a onesie as far as the road. Vehicles can’t pass. This is big enough and wide enough where vehicles can pass. So, it makes a wider roadway.
To connect the two festival components, Fitzgibbons will put booths on a connector road between the parking area and Main Street and inside of the parking deck. Parking will still be available in the parking deck by entering at the north end.
There’s even a perfect area on a little rise near the Beach Express to move the stage that was normally at Marlin Circle. The stage will now be known as the MAKOS Stage. Another stage will be at the Ferris Wheel on the south end of Main Street in the Car Show area.
COVID-19 precautions will be taken including not having a Kids Zone this year but there will be several activities in various areas of the festival.
“We have hand sanitizing stations in all City facilities,” she said. “We’re just going to pull ‘em all in and they’ll be stationed all over the place.”
The main focus of the festival is raising money for the Makos Academics, Arts and Athletics Club which supports activities at all Orange Beach Schools. Everything collected at the festival will go directly to the schools, Fitzgibbons said. There is no charge to attend the festival and plenty of parking is available. Students will be collecting parking donations for those who would like to help support the effort.
MAAAC is also hosting a Seafood Festival 5K at 8 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27. Visit runsignup.com to register for that event.
The open car show features antique, classic and hot rod vehicles. Awards are presented to Top 10 cars and there is a 50/50 split the pot raffle.
For more info, visit orangebeachal.gov.

Festival Entertainment Schedule
MAKO Stage
9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. – Webb Dalton & Friends
1-4 p.m. – Lea Anne Creswell and Lisa Zanghi
Main Street Stage (by Ferris wheel)
9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. – JERI
11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m. – Platinum Premier Duo
2 p.m.- 4 p.m. – Brent Burns
For the most current festival information please visit www.orangebeachal.gov.