{"id":11147,"date":"2025-10-19T16:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/11147\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:25:08","slug":"st-pete-pier-celebrates-5-years-with-fall-festival-and-dazzling-drone-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/11147\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Pier celebrates 5 years with fall festival and dazzling drone show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/7B7002D24F6AB4F776BA12F2CF4F585E.jpg\" alt=\"St. Pete Pier celebrates five years\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-7a5d4fdb=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">ST. PETERSBURG, Fla &#8211; The City of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Petersburg<\/a> celebrated the Pier\u2019s 5th birthday this weekend with a packed fall festival and a high-tech light show. The milestone event was originally set for &#8220;727 Day&#8221; in July, but storms forced the city to reschedule.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Thousands of families flocked to the waterfront to mark the occasion. The festival included live music, bounce houses, face painting, and local food vendors, all free for the community.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The current pier opened in July 2020, transforming a $90 million idea into a downtown destination. It launched in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, famously hosting a socially distanced World Series watch party for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/mlb\/rays-baseball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Since then, it\u2019s become a hub for concerts, fitness classes, seasonal events, even a Halloween dog parade planned for next weekend.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/from-backyard-bbq-bayfront-tradition-tampa-pig-jig-keeps-cooking-cause\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">From backyard BBQ to bayfront tradition: Tampa Pig Jig keeps cooking for a cause<\/a><\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Ferdian Jap, a partner at Pier Events, reflected on how the pier has evolved through the years, from the old Million Dollar Pier to today\u2019s landmark. &#8220;I\u2019m getting emotional to talk about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It\u2019s to bring people out and it\u2019s a free community event that anybody could come and gather and hang out with their neighbors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/vlcsnap-2025-10-19-11h56m39s877.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Drone pilot Yosef Dandis explained how the 1,000 drones were choreographed using GPS and sensors to create a 1,000-foot-wide story in the sky. &#8220;They all have a mission, as we say. So they&#8217;re going up into a pre-designed motion,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">&#8220;You\u2019ll see the story of St. Pete, the Dali Museum, the art, the sports,&#8221; Jap said. The finale featured a birthday cake with five candles, as a pelican figure swooped in to blow them out.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">CLICK HERE:&gt;&gt;&gt; <a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@fox13tampa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Follow FOX 13 on YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: This story is based on reporting from FOX 13\u2019s Jennifer Kveglis at the St. Pete Pier\u2019s fifth anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St. Petersburg<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla &#8211; The City of St. Petersburg celebrated the Pier\u2019s 5th birthday this weekend with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-11147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-pinellas","11":"tag-st-pete","12":"tag-st-pete-headlines","13":"tag-st-pete-news","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","16":"tag-st-petersburg-news","17":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}