The pirates were out at Marden Park on the long weekend, trying to build a pirate militia.
The 10th annual Pirate Festival made Marden its new home from July 30 to Aug. 1. Previously the event was held in Milton.
“It’s working out fantastically,” said organizer Antonio DeCoppi, also known as captain Kheir Ed Din.
“What’s really nice here is that it seems full all the time and it’s very interactive … Coming in people are loving it from what I’ve seen so far.”
The festival is set up as a pirate village where visitors can walk around and see pirates going about their everyday routines, similar to visiting any other town in Ontario.
“The difference though, is it’s interactive so you can go up to the pirates and they’ll tell you what’s going on,” DeCoppi explained. “They’ll tell you about the adventures of the day so far.
“There are plays, there are activities, there’s a mud show, there’s magicians, there’s dancers, there’s singing, there’s music, drink, obviously food.”
Each year the festival has a theme and this year it was building a pirate militia.
“We got kicked out of our old home by the British and we don’t want that to happen again, so now we’re training pedestrians, training the village people to join that,” DeCoppi said. “And what’s great is it allows us to be interactive with the audience.”
Some of the displays even taught visitors how to shoot a bow and arrow and participate in a sword fight.
The festival has something for everyone, DeCoppi said.
“People are just so enamored and so romanced by pirates that the parents love it and the kids just love it because you know they get to dress up and everybody can go ‘arr’ right?” he said.
“It’s great. It’s fun for the whole family and we’ve had people as young as 3 show up and people as old as 90.”
The festival annually takes place on the August long weekend and DeCoppi said the plan is to return to Marden next year.
