Fans of the King Mango Strut packed Fuller Street in Center Grove on Saturday night as parade organizers unveiled the poster and theme for the January 2027 event.
The World Cup may be over, but the Weird Cup is just beginning.
The poster for the 43rd annual King Mango Strut – The Weird Cup: A Kick in the Balls – was unveiled at a Fuller Street block party on Saturday to the sound of live reggae music and a crowd ready to laugh (and drink) off the political turmoil of the year prior.
This year’s theme, a King Mango spin on the summer’s World Cup festivities, sets the tone for the village’s weirdest spectacle, which will hit Main Highway just after the start of the new year.
“It’s our satirical take on the event,” president and organizer of the Strut, Carl Levin, said. “It captures the tongue-in-cheekiness of the King Mango Strut but brings it back to finding community.”
The poster, created by Coconut Grove-based muralist David “DaveL” Lavernia, depicts the classic King Mango mascot adorned in tattoos and sporting soccer cleats, kicking an Earth-like soccer ball to the backdrop of the beach and a dumpster fire.
“The people that live in the Grove, they fight for it. So, this year was a kick to the balls,” Lavernia said.
Lavernia, a lifelong Miamian and Grove resident for the past eight years, has become a regular fixture of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, painting one of the containers in The Stacks – a pyramid of stacked shipping containers painted live over the course of the festival – for the past five years.
One of his murals can also be seen just outside the CocoWalk bathrooms.
“I always wanted to be part of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival or the King Mango Strut or something in the Grove because I felt at home here,” he said.
Nothing tops getting to see his work at the forefront of the King Mango Strut, however.
“It’s the highest honor of Coconut Grove to design this poster,” Lavernia said. “When they approached me about the poster, I was exhilarated.”
The annual parade is the hallmark event celebrating Coconut Grove’s counterculture spirit and aptitude for politics.
For the January 2026 parade, more than 700 people walked the streets clad in costume, holding signs and in varying states of sobriety, as more than 10,000 spectators looked on in bewilderment and amusement.
Parade troupes such as “The Freak Show” and “Mar-a-Lago Lip Service” lampooned the Trump administration, while others mourned the loss of Florida’s rainbow crosswalks with a Wizard of Oz parody.
The parade is also the time of year when even politicians ditch their suits and lean into the wackiness of the Grove.
“I want you to be extra irreverent,” Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo said on Saturday, addressing an audience of more than 100 attendees.
In the last parade, Pardo waved a sign that read “Hasta La Vista Baby” while walking alongside a hearse touting term limits and the end of lifetime Miami politicians.
“It’s my favorite thing to do in the Grove,” Lavernia said. “If it could be every weekend, I would be happy.”
In contrast to last year’s “This Is Fine” theme that accepted a world on fire, the 43rd annual King Mango Strut is embracing defiance. This year’s King Mango is literally kicking back.
“The world is even more divided than it was last year, but the one unifying event that we’ve had was the World Cup,” Levin said.
When it came time to brainstorm this year’s Strut theme, the way the world (almost) put aside politics to enjoy the World Cup stuck with the King Mango Strut board, inspiring The Weird Cup.
“Every year we’ve made the decision: We’re not going to focus on the divisiveness of the world. We’re not going to focus on the conflict. We’re going to focus on the community. We’re going to focus on what brings the world together,” Levin said.
It appears to have resonated with the strutters.
The poster was unveiled to cheers from the audience then handed out for free to attendees Saturday night, including to Lourdes Falconi, a former Grove resident, Coconut Grove Sailing Club member of 20 years, and frequent spectator of the strut.
“It’s super nice. I really like it,” Falconi said. “Other posters have been more traditional. This poster is like, ‘We’re here!’”
Attendees celebrated into the night with performances by School of Rock and local reggae band Chili Guys, as longtime Grovites spread the gospel of the Strut to younger attendees who had stumbled upon the block party.
“It’s wonderful that the Grove is still kind of maintaining its funk and friendliness,” Grovite Bill Kress, who handles communications for the King Mango Strut, said. “This is the chance for the old hippies to strut their stuff before the actual parade.”
