Camden County Georgia St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival
On the Georgia coast, the small waterfront city of St. Marys keeps a carnival season of its own. For many years the celebration travelled under one name, the St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival, promoted as a single Saturday of parades, vendors and dancing. Anyone who goes looking for that exact occasion today should know that the name has stepped back from the front of the programme. The current promotion has rebuilt the celebration as two gatherings held a few days apart: a Sunday afternoon built for families, and a Fat Tuesday evening of lights and music downtown. This article follows both eras and keeps them apart. One point of geography belongs at the front: St. Marys is not the seat of Camden County; Kingsland, its neighbour inland, holds that role.
About the Festival
The name record needs care, because this celebration answers to several printed forms that are not interchangeable. The long-published name is St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival, also printed with a possessive as St. Marys’ Mardi Gras Festival in the visitors bureau’s press releases, including the release that billed the 2016 edition as the twenty-second annual. Local layers sometimes shorten it to Mardi Gras Festival. The present-day promotion, however, does not lead with any of those forms. Its two headline pieces carry their own names: the Sunday gathering is the St. Marys Mardi Gras Jubilee in the bureau’s fact sheet and 2026 promotion, while the Tuesday event is billed as the Fat Tuesday Fest. A 2025 newsletter from the same bureau called the Sunday event St. Marys Family Gras, a third variant for the same slot. A joint promotion, Mardi Gras on the Coast, covers the St. Marys and Kingsland celebrations together. The state tourism layer gives the Tuesday centrepiece its own name, the Mardi Gras Illuminated Parade.
Who runs the occasion has changed with the eras, and the two sets of organizers should never be blended. The 2016 festival, in the bureau’s own release language, was presented by the St. Marys Downtown Merchants Association. The current pieces are promoted by the St. Marys Convention & Visitors Bureau, which also works under the name Visit St. Marys.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Long-published name | St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival |
| Current component names | St. Marys Mardi Gras Jubilee and Fat Tuesday Fest |
| Host town | St. Marys, Camden County, Georgia |
| County seat | Kingsland, not St. Marys |
| Historic place in the calendar | The Saturday before Ash Wednesday |
| Documented 2016 edition | Saturday, February sixth, billed as the twenty-second annual |
| Sunday event in 2026 | February fifteenth, one to four in the afternoon |
| Fat Tuesday in 2026 | February seventeenth, illuminated parade and free concert |
| Present-day promoter | St. Marys Convention & Visitors Bureau |
| Admission | No general admission price published for any era |
History and Background
The older festival kept a simple, demanding slot in the calendar. Guide and bureau layers agree that it was held on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, the final fling before Lent began. That anchor explains the shape of the documented record: one long day, morning to midnight, packed with everything the town wanted to do before the season turned quiet.
No source gathered for this article states a founding year, and this account does not invent one. What the record offers instead is a pair of billings, left side by side here without being reconciled or converted into a start date. A coastal guide layer billed the 2012 edition as the eighteenth year of the festival. The visitors bureau’s press release then billed the February 2016 edition as the twenty-second annual St. Marys’ Mardi Gras Festival. Both numbers are preserved exactly as their layers printed them.
For a useful comparison, see the Camden County Georgia Rock Shrimp Festival for another county festival.
The 2016 edition, held on Saturday, February sixth, is the best documented day in the older festival’s life. It carried a sports theme, the Thrill of Victory, and began early: a charity fun run at seven in the morning, hosted by the DECA and HERO clubs of Camden County High School. Festival events then ran from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, with a parade at ten and rows of arts, crafts, food and activity vendors downtown. The day closed with the Mardi Gras Ball, held from half past six until midnight at Chaser’s at J’s British Pub, with tickets at forty dollars per person. That price belongs to the ball alone, a ticketed extra inside the day, never a gate price for the festival itself. The same release also claimed, as a claim, that the festival had been selected as a Southeast Tourism Society Top 20 Event.
What to Expect
The modern celebration arrives in two parts, which a 2025 fact sheet from the visitors bureau describes plainly as the city’s newest events. The first part is the Sunday afternoon gathering, called the St. Marys Mardi Gras Jubilee in 2026 promotion and St. Marys Family Gras in a 2025 newsletter. It runs from one to four in the afternoon at St. Marys Waterfront Park, at 201 St. Marys Street, and it is aimed squarely at children and parents. A Kids Court offers games including Lucky Ducks, a football toss, mask making, Connect Four, Wheel of Fortune, Plinko and face painting. Beside it, the St. Marys Pirates run a Buccaneer Fun Zone with Chuck-a-Duck, a game printed as “Reel” fishing, Ring Around the Sword, a walk-the-plank challenge and a talk-like-a-pirate corner. Around town, a citywide contest for decorated windows and porches gives residents a part to play.
The second part lands on Fat Tuesday itself, downtown: the illuminated parade, rolling just after dark, followed by a free concert in the park. In 2025 the Sunday gathering fell on March second and the Fat Tuesday Fest on March fourth. In 2026 the Jubilee took Sunday, February fifteenth, and the Fat Tuesday events followed on February seventeenth. One name from the 2025 season deserves exact handling: the singer Collin Raye was billed as headlining the wider Mardi Gras on the Coast promotion that year, and he is not recorded here as a confirmed headliner of the St. Marys town event alone.
Planning Your Visit
The first decision is which gathering you are actually coming for, because the celebration no longer happens on a single day. Families with young children will get the most from the Sunday afternoon at the waterfront park, while the Tuesday event is an evening of parade lights and open-air music. Both dates also float with the church calendar: the modern pair sits in the same pre-Lent window as the old Saturday festival, on the Sunday and Tuesday framing the start of Lent, so the weekend moves yearly.
Money planning is simple, with one warning attached. No general admission price has been published for this celebration in either era, and the Fat Tuesday concert is billed as free. The warning concerns the forty-dollar figure in older coverage: that was a ticket to the 2016 Mardi Gras Ball, a separate evening function, not the cost of entering the festival. For current-year details, confirm times through the visitors bureau’s own announcements before travelling, since the restructured format is young and its pieces may still be adjusted.
A Sample Itinerary
A family making the most of the modern format might treat it as two short outings rather than one long day. On the Sunday, arrive at the waterfront park shortly before one, when the Jubilee opens. Give the children the first hour in the Kids Court, moving between the duck games, mask making and face painting, then cross to the Buccaneer Fun Zone for the plank walk and the pirate games. Later, drive the nearby streets to admire the decorated porches and windows entered in the citywide contest before heading home for an early night.
On the Tuesday, return downtown as dusk approaches and claim a place along the parade route before the light goes. Watch the illuminated parade roll through after dark, then follow the crowd toward the park for the free concert that closes the celebration.
How It Compares
The closest comparison is also the easiest to get wrong. Under the same Mardi Gras on the Coast umbrella, Kingsland holds its own celebration, the K-BAY Mardi Gras Festival, in the county seat. Its dates in the joint promotion were February twenty-eighth to March first in 2025 and February sixth and seventh in 2026. It is a separate city’s event, with its own acts and its own parade, and none of its programme belongs in the St. Marys story; the shared umbrella is a marketing roof, not a merger. The town’s October seafood festival is likewise a different event in a different season, and nothing from its record has been carried into this one.
Against the wider world, the obvious benchmark is New Orleans, whose Mardi Gras is a different celebration entirely, larger in every dimension and rooted in its own Louisiana traditions. The St. Marys version makes no attempt to imitate that scale. Its character comes from the opposite direction: a small coastal town, a waterfront park, and a carnival fitted to the community that hosts it.
Visitor Checklist
- Decide which gathering you want: the Sunday family afternoon, the Fat Tuesday evening, or both.
- Note the current names, Jubilee and Fat Tuesday Fest, when searching for this year’s details.
- Plan around the pre-Lent window, since the dates move with Ash Wednesday each year.
- Head to St. Marys Waterfront Park on 201 St. Marys Street for the Sunday event.
- Go downtown for the Fat Tuesday programme and the illuminated parade after dark.
- Bring warm layers, because February evenings on the coast turn cold once the sun drops.
- Arrive before dark on Tuesday to secure a comfortable spot along the parade route.
- Budget no gate fee, since no general admission price is published for the celebration.
- Do not mistake the forty-dollar 2016 ball ticket for a festival admission price.
- Check the visitors bureau’s latest announcements before travelling, as the format is new.
Beyond the Festival
The celebration’s reach extends past its two venues because of the decorating contest, which turns ordinary residential streets into part of the scenery. A visitor who only attends the scheduled events misses the porches and windows dressed for the season across town; a slow drive between the two gatherings is the easiest way to take them in. The waterfront park does similar work on the Sunday, when the town’s everyday gathering place on the riverfront doubles as its festival ground.
Why the Festival Matters
What gives this small celebration its weight is the way the town has refused to let the tradition simply fade. The older festival had genuine standing in its day, presented by local merchants and opened by school club runners. When that format ended, the name could easily have ended with it. Instead, the visitors bureau rebuilt the occasion in a new shape and introduced the pieces openly as the city’s newest events. The result preserves the essentials, a parade, music, food, children playing games in the park, while admitting that the container had changed. For a town of this size, that willingness to restart a tradition rather than embalm it is the real story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has the celebration in St. Marys genuinely changed its name?
In practice, yes. The single name St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival belongs to the older one-day festival and was still being billed by the visitors bureau in 2016. The current promotion instead leads with two component names, the St. Marys Mardi Gras Jubilee for the Sunday afternoon and the Fat Tuesday Fest for Tuesday night, which a bureau fact sheet describes as the city’s newest events.
Why does the celebration now happen on two separate days?
Because the restructured format assigns each audience its own occasion. The Sunday event, held from one to four in the afternoon at the waterfront park, is built around children’s games and family activities. The Fat Tuesday event keeps the night-time elements, an illuminated parade after dark and a free concert. The split replaced the old single Saturday, which had run from a morning fun run to a midnight ball.
What did the forty-dollar ticket in the 2016 coverage actually buy?
It bought admission to one component of that year’s festival: the Mardi Gras Ball, an evening function held at a downtown pub from half past six until midnight on the festival Saturday. The price was the ball’s own ticket, charged per person. It was never the price of entering the festival grounds, and no general admission price appears anywhere in the record for any era.
Is the K-BAY celebration in Kingsland the same event under another name?
No. The K-BAY Mardi Gras Festival is staged in Kingsland, the Camden County seat, on its own dates and with its own parade and acts. It shares only a promotional umbrella with the St. Marys gatherings, the joint Mardi Gras on the Coast banner. The two towns’ events are neighbours in the same carnival week, not one festival with two addresses.
What to Expect From the Next Camden County Georgia St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival
How often is Camden County Georgia St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival held?
The celebration belongs to the Mardi Gras season and returns as that season comes round. In its documented older form it occupied one day, the Saturday before Ash Wednesday. In its current form, as staged in 2025 and 2026, it occupies two: the Sunday afternoon gathering and the Fat Tuesday event two days later. Expect the rhythm to follow the carnival calendar rather than any fixed weekend.
When is the next Camden County Georgia St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival?
No organiser-announced date for a future edition appears in the material gathered for this article, so no specific day is stated here as confirmed. The reliable guide is the pattern: the Sunday and Tuesday framing the beginning of Lent, with component names and times published by the visitors bureau closer to the season. Treat any exact date found elsewhere with caution until the bureau publishes it.
Will the dates change?
The dates already move every year, because the celebration is anchored to Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent rather than to a fixed place on the calendar. The format has changed at least once as well, when the one-day festival gave way to the Jubilee and Fat Tuesday Fest. Expect both the calendar position and, quite possibly, the shape of the programme to keep evolving.
A Final Word
The St. Marys Mardi Gras Festival is best understood as a tradition in mid-reinvention. Its documented past is a single, crowded Saturday before Lent, and its present is a pair of smaller gatherings that share the season and the town but not a name or a format. Taken on those terms, honestly labelled, it remains one of the Georgia coast’s most distinctive small celebrations.
