Overview The National Hard Crab Derby is a four-day Labor Day weekend festival in Crisfield, Maryland, the waterman town on Tangier Sound known as the Crab Capital of the World. The Crisfield Area Chamber of Commerce runs it, mostly at Somers Cove Marina, the largest state-owned marina in Maryland. The crab race is the centerpiece: hundreds of blue crabs sent down a sloped wooden track, headed by the Governor's Cup, which enters a crab for every state. On site The grounds open each afternoon with crab dish vendors, an artisan market, a carnival with a children's area, and a live band every night on the concert stage, where VIP tables of eight sit in front of the bleachers with their own drinks server. Friday morning starts with the crab cooking contest. Saturday runs from the 10K and 5K at the City Dock to the Main Street parade, then the crab picking contest, 15 minutes against the clock on steamed crabs, and the crab races. On Sunday workboat captains race to dock at the City Dock, and fireworks over the water close the weekend. Audience The weekend works as a homecoming, and families enter crabs in the races year after year. On race morning visitors buy a local crab, name it and watch the name go up on the board before the heats; past winning crabs have belonged to owners from Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Boaters rent slips at the marina to stay beside the grounds, and the town's hotels fill for the weekend. Talent and Influencers Regional bands headline the concert stage each night, and a recent lineup ran Alter Ego, Smitty, Brooks Flaherty, the Jovon Newman Band and Johnny "Cash" Barnett. The winners of the Miss Crustacean, Little Miss Crustacean and Little Mr. Crustacean pageants represent the derby at events around the Eastern Shore for the following year. Track record The derby began after World War II, when Crisfield Times editor Egbert L. Quinn proposed a crab race, and the first crabs raced out of a chalk circle on the street. The Governor's Cup was the idea of Crisfield native Governor J. Millard Tawes. The crab picking contest honors the women who picked crabmeat by hand in the town's packing houses. The races now run a dozen preliminary heats before the final. Brand presence Sponsor tiers are named for grades of crabmeat, from Claw up to Jumbo Lump, and the Jumbo Lump sponsor is billed as the derby's named sponsor. Every sponsor's logo goes on a community banner that hangs all weekend, top-tier banners hang at the concert stage, the carnival and the crab race area, and sponsor names are read from the stage between events. Members of American Legion Post 16 load and run the crab races, and proceeds from race-day crab sales go to the Post.