ST. SIMONS ISLAND — “Frat Beach” was, as usual, on its ear Friday.
Known as East Beach the other 364 days of the year, this otherwise quaint stretch of sand on the east end of this barrier island becomes “Frat Beach” the day before the Georgia-Florida game. That’s because a crowd — estimated at 8,000 — of mostly Greek-organization-affiliated UGA students but a gaggle of gawkers as well takes over for about an eight-hour stretch in the middle of the day.
That this weekend annually falls on or around Halloween only adds to the festive atmosphere. Dressed in a vast array of costumes ranging from to the sweater-wearing characters from the movie “Step Brothers” to a young man in just a diaper, the revelers frolic to and fro, carrying gallon milk jugs filled with liquids of various colors and contents.
One student dressed as a bottle of lubricant said the contents of his jug included rum, vodka, strawberry-kiwi juice and Sprite. Asked what he called it, he said, “More Than I Need.”
Bordering the scene are police, emergency responders and middle-aged citizens kicked back in lawn chairs. They’re there to be entertained by the world-class people-watching and to lend a hand if and when needed.
Mary Wethern is a retired teacher who moved to St. Simons from Atlanta with her husband a little over a year ago. She was taking in Frat Beach for the first time Friday.
“I’ve never in my life seen anything like it,” said Wethern, who was engaged to her husband, Tom, during Georgia-Florida weekend 39 years ago. “It’s changed a little bit over the years. It’s good, and it’s as controlled as it can be for what it is. But, you know, it’s just a bunch of kids having a good time and the community trying to support as best we can.”
The Wetherns sat under a tent with a cooler of water and sack of sunscreen to share with those who might need it.
“We try to keep our eyes out for those that might need help and make sure everybody has a good day,” Wethern said. “It’s just fun to see everybody having a good time in such a tumultuous time in the world.”
The unspoken backdrop of Friday’s scene is that it soon will go away. Not permanently, but just for a couple of years as the Georgia-Florida game takes a two-year hiatus from Jacksonville. The Jaguars’ decision to give EverBank Stadium a $1.4 billion facelift will send the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” to Atlanta and Tampa from 2026-27.
That news, long feared in these parts, became official this week. So did the news that the game will return to Jacksonville for at least four years starting in 2028.
Here on the barrier islands along the Georgia coast, known as the Golden Isles, this is what they call a “shoulder season.” There are two of them, one in the late winter and the other now in the late fall. It’s considered “off-peak” in the vacation and tourism industry.
At St. Simons in particular, for this otherwise sleepy, oak-strewn island, things are anything but off-peak. They are, in fact, peaking.
Thanks to the Georgia-Florida football game, the occupancy rate for hotel rooms and rental properties on St. Simons this week is 100%.
“This is a sellout weekend for us; it always is,” said Kris Maichle, general manager of Hodnett Cooper, a real estate company that rents 300 home and condominium units on St. Simons. “All our units are occupied, and they are decent rates because there’s so much demand.”
But that’s not expected to be the case when Georgia plays Florida in Atlanta in 2026 and in Tampa in 2027.
“It’s gonna hurt. There’s no getting around that,” Maichle said. “We have a couple of other weekends in the fall where we have nice weather that do really well. It’s always nice weather this time of year. But losing a complete-sellout weekend before the holidays the next two years is going to sting.”
Scott McQuade, president and CEO of the Golden Isles Convention and Visitors Bureau, estimates the economic impact of Georgia and Florida football fans flocking to the coast each October to be “$10-15 million.” And typically, it’s for much more than a weekend.
“We start seeing people coming in at the beginning of the week, some of them the previous weekend,” McQuade said. “There’s always a fluctuation that depends on how the teams are doing. In recent years, the lodging has been sold out for the entire weekend.”
Georgia has won 52 of its past 55 games – and two national championships – under coach Kirby Smart, and six of the past eight against the Gators. The irony in that is that the success under Smart, who at one time was a proponent of playing Florida home-and-home, has made the annual excursion to South Georgia and North Florida more popular than ever for Georgia fans.
McQuade and local business owners do not want to see that momentum lost when the game goes elsewhere for two years.
“We have to come up with some alternative plans,” McQuade said. “It’s always more difficult to fill up our properties during our shoulder seasons. But after all the talk about them going home-and-home the last decade, we know we can rest a little more easy now.”
Preliminary discussions have centered around promoting the Georgia-Florida football weekend on St. Simons anyway. Both universities do not hold classes the day before the game, which allows students to leave campus and travel here. For UGA students, that’s a five- to six-hour drive.
“It’s not going to be the crazy sellout weekend we’re accustomed to, but it’s still a pretty awesome weekend to be on St. Simons,” Maichle said. “The weather is incredible this time of year. So, we’re not in a spot where we can’t sell our area. But we just don’t anticipate a sellout weekend.”
Marveling at the costume-clad students dancing on the beach under a picturesque blue sky, Wethern said she couldn’t imagine the students not coming to St. Simons anyway.
“I think maybe they’ll still come here,” she said. “How could you not do this? They’re just having way too much fun.”
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