Here’s a question. What does the World's Largest Rubber Duck have to do with the heavy metal band Metallica and the World's Richest Man Elon Musk?

The big, 61-foot tall duck, is now appearing at Erie’s Tall Ships Festival. The duck is promoted by Craig Samborski.  He spent the early years of his career producing the tours of a few famous musicians.

"I spent some time with Metallica and The Chili Peppers,” says Craig.  “If you're familiar with Bob Dylan, you might be familiar with a guy named John Prine.  I spent about 9 years of my life with John, which was extraordinarily cool. All of that is a young man's sport though.”

Craig moved on to producing tall ship festivals. He did it for many years without a large rubber duck.  One day he organized a tall ships festival in Los Angeles.  Craig remembers meeting with a city official over a few beers.

"He said, 'You know you're a nice event planer from Minnesota, Craig.  But you're in L.A. now.  You need to go big or go home."

The official suggested that Craig build the World's Largest Rubber Duck.  Craig introduced the 69- foot wide duck in 2014 and it was an immediate hit, not only in LA, but across the continent. It's definitely a crowd favorite in Erie.

"It took off like wildfire,” says Craig.  “We have been to so many places.  We've done so many crazy things with this duck."

During some of the duck's earliest shows, it sprung a leak and deflated in cities such as Philadelphia and Green Bay. Video was all over the internet.   The fiascos made the duck's popularity grow even larger.

"A great example of 'There's no such thing as bad public relations,” Craig says.  

Oh yeah, you're probably wondering about the connection with Elon Musk.  Musk insisted on having the 129-foot long duck at the opening of his Tesla plant in Austin, Texas two years ago. The World's Richest Person is a big fan of the World's Largest Duck.

"Elon said, ‘Your duck has to be at the grand opening of the event,” remembers Craig.  “So, I think that was pretty cool.  That's how I found out he was such a big fan."