George Town, Grand Cayman – It’s hard to believe but Pirates’ Week is 40 years old this year.  Four decades of celebrations have seen this event grow from an initiative, conceived to give tourism a boost in 1977, to becoming the country’s largest national festival, attracting countless guests from all over the world.

Celebrating the colourful history, culture and heritage of our three beautiful islands, this festival provides the perfect backdrop to showcase our true heritage, tradition and display our unique ‘Cayman Kind’ pride.

Not content to stand still and regurgitate the same winning formula, this festival has constantly evolved and grown to provide guests, who make their annual pilgrimage to the festival from near and far, an opportunity to savour something new.  This year is no exception and for our 40^th Anniversary, all of the districts of Grand Cayman will come together in George Town to celebrate one mammoth Heritage Day on Monday 13^th November.

Spectators will have the opportunity to wander from West Bay to East End in just a few steps, while stopping off at George Town, Bodden Town and North Side along the way.  Food stalls, entertainment stages, traditional crafts and more will delight and dazzle as our districts compete for the top spot!

As a result of this Heritage Day Spectacular, this special anniversary festival will be marked by a new exciting five day festival format, commencing on 9^th November until the 13th November.

Work is already underway to ensure that the programme for this special festival will be unforgettable, with increased entertainment, competitions, pageantry and fun for all ages.  

None of this would be possible however without the continued support of our local businesses and this year is no different.  To reflect this special anniversary, festival organisers are launching a new initiative, ‘40 for 40’, aimed at encouraging 40 private and public sector businesses to each contribute CI$1000 sponsorship which in turn will provide the backbone to this, the largest community event on the Cayman Islands calendar.

We are looking forward to working with these 40 companies in support of the heritage and culture of the Cayman Islands’ National Festival, “Pirates Week”.

Please contact the Pirates Week Festival Office at 949-5078 or email [email protected] for more details. 

Melanie J. McField, MBA

Executive Director – Pirates Week Festival

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EDITOR: The insertion of the word “DOWN” in parenthesis was placed by iNews Editor. It was to point out that the annual 10-12 Day Festival as has been the past number of days (when I first came to the Cayman Islands 35 years ago it was 9 days) has, for its 40 year anniversary, been DOWNED to just FIVE days! Please see Editorial today.

IMAGE: Twitter