Gulfport GECKOFEST offers food, entertainment and … high fives

GULFPORT, Fla. — The City of Gulfport will celebrate its 23rd annual GECKOFEST on Saturday. There will be a full day of family friendly fun including two stages of entertainment, lots of food choices and street entertainers.

One of the street entertainers will be stilt walker Maggi Soluna.

“I’ll be out here on the street giving out high fives,” Soluna said. “It’ll be a really high five. You might have to jump for it. Taking pictures with people and just having a good time.”

Soluna dresses in a very colorful outfit with some long pants that cover her extra-long leg extensions.

“I’ve got two straps on the foot and then one just below the knee at the calf,” she said.

Soluna sits in a very tall chair as she straps on her stilts. And there is quite a procedure for standing up.

“And then to get up, I have a nice wide stance, and then I have to press myself up and work my way up to be able to stand up,” she said. “And then I’m about eight and a half or nine feet tall when I’m up here.”

Soluna said she started stilt walking as a hobby, but she turned it into a profession six years ago. Now she performs all over the Bay area.

“So I started building up my costumes. I have my own performers’ insurance. I have my own website and it’s turned into a full-blown profession for me,” said Soluna.

GECKOFEST comes at an important time for Gulfport. The city relies heavily on tourism, and the one-day event brings in lots of extra visitors who spend money.

That’s important for businesses like the Gulfport Beach Bazaar. It will sell a lot of GECKOFEST merchandise.

“Heat, school’s back in, so it brings a ton of people for that day. Money to carry us through September I would say,” said co-owner Gini Fagon.TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — One year after Hurricane Idalia made landfall and sent floodwaters into thousands of homes, some of Pinellas County’s beaches remain in a very vulnerable state.

On Sunset Beach on Treasure Island, just a fraction of the sand dunes that are keeping the ocean water from reaching Gulf Blvd remain.