I've decided not to attend the Ocracoke event, since it's going to be 4 professional pirate crews and all staged events from what I've gathered. I don't know if free-lance pirates will be welcome. (Not to mention that I'm not on good terms with the Hyde County Sherrif's Dept., for reasons I won't mention here. Suffice it to say they don't appreciate it when you turn North Carolina law against them.) I'm also amazed that they're going to have a "battle" in the harbor with black powder cannon, since they had a major firework accident on the island 4 years ago and fireworks are strictly forbidden.
I attended "Pirates Pack the Park" a couple of weeks ago at the Maritime Museum in Newport News and was mostly disappointed. It was an effort to break the Guinness Record for most pirates in one place at the same time. They originally said you had to have a reasonable pirate outfit, but in the last week they changed the rules. If you wore a t-shirt, rolled up pants and a patch, you were considered a pirate. Even so, they fell far short of the record.