Camden County Georgia Rock Shrimp Festival

Anyone who comes looking for this festival under the name printed at the top of this page needs one fact before anything else: that name belongs to the event’s past. The Camden County Chamber of Commerce describes the October gathering in St. Marys as an event that has formerly been known as the St. Marys Rock Shrimp Festival, and the name the current layers use is the St. Marys Seafood Festival. The change of title did not remove the dish that built the day, because organiser and tourism layers still bill rock shrimp dinners as the festival’s signature plate. This article therefore anchors on the living event in St. Marys, presented by the Kiwanis Club of St. Marys and fixed to the first Saturday of October along the town’s riverfront, while keeping the older name visible wherever the record uses it. What follows separates the two eras: which sources print which name, which editions carry firm dates, what the day contains, and where the record stops, including the absence of any stated founding year and of any counted attendance figure.

About the Festival

The festival’s present identity is the St. Marys Seafood Festival, and its organiser is the Kiwanis Club of St. Marys, named in the chamber layer and in destination marketing layers alike. A 2025 organiser-side schedule newsletter prints the presentation line in full: presented by the Kiwanis Club of St. Marys with the support of the City of St. Marys. That support matters, because this is a civic club’s fundraiser staged with municipal backing rather than a commercial promotion. The Visit Kingsland destination layer adds the purpose behind the dinner sales: festival proceeds support Kiwanis youth programs in Camden County. The setting is the St. Marys waterfront, though its printed forms vary by layer and are kept unmerged here. A Georgia Magazine destination layer from 2022 gives the venue as the St. Marys Riverfront at 100 St. Marys Street, St. Marys. Visit Kingsland and city bureau press-release layers from 2025 and 2026 instead name St. Marys Waterfront Park and describe the ground as lying along the riverfront in St. Marys’ historic district. Older Rock Shrimp-era layers say simply downtown St. Marys. One geographic point deserves plain statement: St. Marys hosts the festival, but it is not the seat of Camden County. Kingsland holds that position.

Quick Facts

Fact	Detail
Current published name	St. Marys Seafood Festival
Former published name	St. Marys Rock Shrimp Festival
Host town	St. Marys, along the riverfront
County seat	Kingsland, a separate town from the host
Organiser	Kiwanis Club of St. Marys
Timing	The first Saturday in October
Dated editions in the record	2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2022, 2025 and 2026
Admission	Free, per a 2026 coastal-Georgia guide layer
Founding year	Not stated in any gathered source
Attendance	No counted figure for any year

History and Background

The printed trail behind this festival is long in span and thin in places, and its silences are part of the evidence. No source gathered for this article states a founding year, so no origin date can honestly be offered. The earliest firmly dated editions arrive through a coastal guide layer, which places the festival on September 25, 2010, then October 1, 2011, and then October 6, 2012, each time under the Rock Shrimp name. A magazine layer then bills the edition of October 1, 2016 as the forty-fourth annual St. Marys Rock Shrimp Festival. That ordinal is recorded here as what it is, a billing, and never converted into a founding year. The same magazine layer expected more than twelve thousand people for that 2016 edition, a figure handled here strictly as a magazine expectation rather than a counted crowd. The rename sits somewhere in the years after 2016, and the record refuses to pin it down further: the chamber calls the Rock Shrimp title the former name, no layer states the year the change happened, and by 2022 destination layers are already printing St. Marys Seafood Festival. The October 1, 2022 edition ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. under a theme celebrating fifty years of Cumberland Island National Seashore, with waterfront re-enactments tied to that anniversary year. An organiser-side schedule newsletter then documents Saturday, October 4, 2025. The most recent edition is October 3, 2026, carried by a bureau press-release layer from November 2025 and by the Explore Georgia fall-fairs list, with a food-festival listing layer adding programme details for that year.

What to Expect

The fullest recent programme descriptions come from the convention and visitors bureau layers for 2025 and 2026, supplemented by destination layers describing the Kiwanis food operation. A themed parade anchors the morning; the bureau layer for 2026 puts it at 10 a.m. Road races run alongside the festival proper, in five-kilometre and ten-kilometre forms, and they are separately entered components rather than part of any gate arrangement. Food is the centre of gravity. Seafood concessionaires trade across the ground, and the Kiwanis dinners documented in the destination layers plate up fried rock shrimp, boiled shrimp, fish, coleslaw and hushpuppies, a menu that explains why the dinners remain the signature even under the Seafood title. Arts and crafts vendors fill out the trading side, and the bureau layers add entertainment and demonstrations across the day. Families are specifically served in the recent programmes: the 2025 and 2026 bureau layers list a Kids Fun Zone and free concerts. One element must be fenced to its year. The waterfront re-enactments belonged to the 2022 edition alone, where they marked the Cumberland Island National Seashore anniversary theme; no layer presents them as a standing feature, and a visitor in another year should not arrive expecting them.

Planning Your Visit

Which Saturday to circle is the first practical question, and the record is unusually tidy: chamber, bureau and destination layers agree across both name eras that the festival sits on the first Saturday in October. Entry money is simpler still. A coastal-Georgia guide layer from 2026 calls the event a free one, and no organiser-published ticket price exists in any gathered layer, so the honest budget is the cost of food, drink and whatever the craft stalls tempt out of a pocket. The road races need separate handling, because entering a run is a distinct registration from attending the festival, and race fees were not captured in the record and are never treated here as admission. Printed hours exist for one edition only: the 2022 destination layer gives 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and no other year’s hours are published in the gathered layers, so travellers should await the current year’s announcement rather than assume those times carry over. For finding the ground, hold the venue forms loosely, since the layers name the riverfront, the waterfront park and the historic district in different years; aiming for the waterfront edge of the historic district is the approach the combined record supports. Anyone navigating by the old name should update the search before setting out, because recent listings live under the Seafood title.

For a useful comparison, see the Bulloch County Georgia Kiwanis Ogeechee Fair Festival for another county festival.

A Sample Day at the Festival

A day shaped by the documented programme might begin with the road races, whose routes give runners their festival before the crowds build. Mid-morning belongs to the themed parade, which the bureau layer timed at 10 a.m. for the 2026 edition, after which the ground opens into its trading and eating rhythm. Late morning suits a first circuit of the arts and crafts vendors, before the dinner queues lengthen. The middle of the day is built for the Kiwanis plate: fried rock shrimp with boiled shrimp, fish, coleslaw and hushpuppies, eaten within earshot of the entertainment and demonstrations the bureau layers describe. Families can give the afternoon to the Kids Fun Zone and the free concerts. Nothing here invents a schedule; it arranges published elements, with year-specific details flagged.

How It Compares

Camden County supports more than one seafood-adjacent celebration, and the neighbours must not be folded into this one. The Woodbine Crawfish Festival is a separate festival in its own town, carried in chamber and guide layers as a distinct event. The Kingsland Catfish Festival is likewise separate, and its setting underlines the county geography this article has been careful about: Kingsland, the county seat, hosts a festival of its own rather than hosting this one. Across the county line, the Jekyll Island Shrimp & Grits Festival in Glynn County is a different event again, sharing a shellfish theme and nothing else in the record. The closest comparison is actually internal. A traveller who finds an old guide printing the Rock Shrimp name and a current listing printing the Seafood name has not found two rival festivals; the chamber’s own wording settles that the second title replaced the first for a single continuing event, even though no layer dates the change.

Visitor Checklist

• Search for the current title, St. Marys Seafood Festival, when checking listings
• Fix on the first Saturday in October, the pattern every layer agrees on
• Confirm the year’s date before travelling, as no organiser-announced date beyond October 3, 2026 is on record
• Treat road race entry as a separate registration from festival attendance
• Budget for food stalls and craft vendors rather than for a gate ticket
• Aim for the riverfront in the historic district, however the year’s listing names the ground
• Plan a Kiwanis seafood dinner into the middle of the day
• Look for the Kids Fun Zone in recent programmes when travelling with children
• Remember that Kingsland, not the host town, is the Camden County seat

Beyond the Festival

The festival’s ground gives a visitor the rest of the town almost without effort, because the bureau layers place the event along the riverfront in St. Marys’ historic district, so the historic streets stand immediately behind the ground. The waterfront itself is the town’s front porch, and the 2022 edition’s theme pointed across the water, celebrating fifty years of Cumberland Island National Seashore and tying the day’s re-enactments to that anniversary. A festival trip can therefore stretch into an unhurried pass through the historic district once the concerts end. Kingsland, the county seat, lies within the same county for anyone rounding out a Camden County visit, though its own catfish festival belongs to a different date. As the chamber and guide layers present it, the county spreads its celebrations across its towns rather than stacking them in one place.

Why the Festival Matters

The festival’s significance is threefold. First, it is a working fundraiser: the Visit Kingsland destination layer states that proceeds support Kiwanis youth programs in Camden County, so the dinners and stalls convert a day out into money for young people across the county. Second, it carries a food identity through a change of identity. The rock shrimp dinner survived the loss of the rock shrimp name, and the layers’ continued billing of those dinners as the signature plate shows a festival confident enough to rename itself around the broader seafood story without surrendering the dish that made it. Third, the event demonstrates depth without disclosing its start. Dated editions run from 2010 to 2026 in the gathered record, and a magazine layer was already billing a forty-fourth annual edition in 2016, yet no source states when the first edition was held. The honest summary is a long-lived festival, run by a local civic club with city support, whose beginnings the printed record does not preserve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the festival now answer to a different name than the one in this title?

Because the event was renamed, and the chamber says so in terms. The Camden County Chamber of Commerce states that the festival has formerly been known as the St. Marys Rock Shrimp Festival, while chamber, destination and bureau layers from 2022 onward print St. Marys Seafood Festival. No gathered source states the year the rename happened, so this article records the fact of the change and the presence of the new name by 2022, and invents nothing in between.

What lands on the plate at a Kiwanis seafood dinner?

The destination layers describe the Kiwanis dinners in specific terms: fried rock shrimp, boiled shrimp, fish, coleslaw and hushpuppies. That menu is why the rock shrimp billing persists in organiser and tourism layers even after the rename, since the dinners are still presented as the signature offering. Seafood concessionaires elsewhere on the ground widen the choice beyond the set dinner.

What published crowd figure exists, and how much weight does it carry?

Very little weight, and this article gives it none beyond its own terms. A magazine layer expected more than twelve thousand people for the 2016 edition, the one billed as the forty-fourth annual. That is an expectation printed ahead of a single edition, not a counted attendance, and no counted figure is published for any year in the gathered record.

Do the road races form part of the festival’s admission?

There is no admission charge for them to form part of. A 2026 coastal-Georgia guide layer calls the festival a free event, and no organiser-published ticket price exists in any layer. The five-kilometre and ten-kilometre runs are separately entered components; their fees were not captured in the gathered record and are never treated as festival admission.

What to Expect From the Next Camden County Georgia Rock Shrimp Festival

How often is Camden County Georgia Rock Shrimp Festival held?

The documented pattern is a single October date in the years the record covers, fixed to the first Saturday of the month. Chamber, bureau and destination layers agree on that Saturday rule across both name eras, and dated editions appear in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2022, 2025 and 2026.

When is the next Camden County Georgia Rock Shrimp Festival?

No organiser-announced future date exists in the gathered record. The latest documented edition is October 3, 2026, published through a bureau press-release layer and the state destination fall-fairs list. The standing first-Saturday pattern describes how the festival has been placed, but it confirms no specific coming date, and none is stated here as confirmed.

Will the dates change?

The day rule has already survived one major change, since the festival kept its first-Saturday-in-October placement through the rename from Rock Shrimp to Seafood. The calendar date necessarily moves yearly because it follows the Saturday rule rather than a fixed number. No gathered layer announces any change to that arrangement, so the expectation is continuity, with each year’s exact date awaiting its own announcement.

A Final Word

The festival on the St. Marys riverfront rewards a reader who follows its names carefully: a Rock Shrimp past the chamber itself labels former, a Seafood present documented through 2026, and a rock shrimp dinner that outlasted the title it once headlined. Held on the first Saturday of October by a Kiwanis club working for the county’s young people, it asks only that visitors arrive under the right name, on the right Saturday, in the right town.