04/26/2023
It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the Northern California Pirate Festival will not be happening this year.
Please read the full announcement below (as well as information as to how you can help)
For fourteen years we have held the pirate festival at the Marina Green in Vallejo.
The venue has worked "well enough" for the festival, but over the years several issues have come up and we feel the site is no longer tenable.
The park is hard to secure and requires far more security than any event should have to pay for. The mare island channel has gotten shallower and is very difficult to have any kind of a "ship presence." There are other issues, but the short version is that we have been hard at work trying to find a new venue to hold the festival at. (More on this later.)
We still DID have hopes to get it all together and hold the festival this year...but have still not had any luck with finding a new location that would provide everything it needs to succeed.
BUT...
On March 17th we received horrible news. Our beloved friend/partner/husband Ray Amsbury passed unexpectedly.
For those who don't know, if any one person was MOST responsible for the creation of the NorCal Pirate Festival...it was Ray.
Many years ago, we were sitting around lamenting that we had no pirate festival anywhere near us...and it was Ray who exclaimed "Why don't WE make one?"
If you ever met Ray, you know that is was impossible not to like him.
he was kindest pirate you could ever meet, with a Santa-like twinkle in his eye, the warmest smile, and he always made time to talk to everyone that ever walked into his booth.
We all love him dearly and this has hit us very hard.
Already, we had been having trouble finding a new site in time to get the festival all together for this year, and this was the last straw.
We are taking time to recover from this terrible loss, and soon we are going to resume our hunt for a new venue for the festival. Please believe that we understand this is a disappointment to all our wonderful friends who were looking forward to the festival returning this year. But it our sincere hope that during this time we will find a new and better site and the festival will return even stronger than before.
Soon we will post a "wish list" of what would make an ideal venue for the Pirate Festival, and we'll be asking for your suggestions. So maybe you can help us bring it back.
In the meantime, we ask you to respect our moments of silence.
Rest in Peace, Ray.
Beloved Husband, Friend and Father Figure.
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