Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival

The Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival was an annual seafood and arts festival held in Niceville, Florida, United States, on the third Friday in October from 1977 to 2019. The main attractions were music, food (especially fried mullet), rides and a wide variety of arts and crafts.

This festival was named after the mullet, a fish found in abundance in the local waters. While it is a common misconception, the mullet haircut is not the origin of the festival's name.

The festival was founded by Walter Francis Spence Jr. in 1976. The first Mullet Festival took place on September 24, 1977, and soon lasted three days, starting the third Friday in October, and ended Sunday after dark. Alcohol is not served on Sunday. In recent years, the festival has typically had attendance over 40,000 for the weekend.

Chantal, Hollywood entertainment reporter for ABC's "Good Morning America," broadcast from the festival on Friday, October 20, 1989. During the broadcast, festival founder, Francis Spence, and local James Campbell demonstrated how to catch and fry mullet.[1]

In 2009, a third annual Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival T-shirt made by Tailgate Clothing Company appeared in Season 2 of the HBO series, "True Blood" (Episode 3 - "Scratches"). A representative from the show said that she found the shirt on a Web site she used to outfit some of the characters. A Mullet Festival T-shirt had also appeared on the CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother" (Season 4, Episode 1), according to Niceville City Manager Lannie Corbin.[2]

2019 was the 43rd & final. The next year, the COVID-19 pandemic, along with declining revenues & attendance in recent years, caused their doom.