By Delayna Earley
The Island News
It’s that time of year that shrimp lovers look forward to in Beaufort.
The 29th annual Beaufort Shrimp Festival will be held on Friday, Oct. 6 and Saturday, Oct. 7 at Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.
The festival is held each year to celebrate shrimp season.
There are two shrimp seasons in South Carolina, the first runs from May through August and that is when smaller, brown shrimp are harvested, and the second runs from September to December, when white shrimp are harvested.
Admission to the festival is free, and tickets can be purchased on site to buy food and drinks.
Local restaurants and food trucks will be there serving their best shrimp dishes like shrimp burgers, Lowcountry Boil, shrimp fried rice, shrimp fritters, shrimp and grits, fried shrimp, steamed shrimp and even smoked shrimp.
Participants include Sea Eagle Market, Food Savvy Mobile, Mother Smokin’ Good!, SERG Restaurant Group, Tout Sweet Macarons, Teen Challenge, Cappys and Belly Full by Tyger.
The Arts & Crafts Market opens on Friday at noon and closes at 6 p.m.
The main festival begins at 5 p.m. and goes until 10 p.m.
Beaufort musician Ces Hage will take the stage at 5 p.m. and will be followed by Slippery when Wet – The Ultimate Bon Jovi Tribute Band at 7 p.m.
On Saturday, the Arts & Crafts Market opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m.
The main festival begins at 11 a.m. and will go until 4 p.m.
Country music singer Jason Lee Cook from Charleston will take the stage at from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. followed by The Official Parris Island Marine Corps Band at 1 p.m.
Brett Coleman will play at 2:15 p.m. and Katie Lynn will play at 3:15 p.m.
The Run Forrest Run 5K, which has runners run the course where the movie Forrest Gump was filmed in the early 1990s, will begin at 8 a.m. on Saturday at Newcastle Street.
Participants will run through downtown Beaufort and over the Woods Memorial Bridge.
According to the Beaufort Shrimp Festival’s website, a Forrest Gump impersonator will be at the start and finish line to take photos.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She joined The Island News in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
