Myrtle Beach's First Songwriters Festival Lands on the Downtown Block the Construction Crews Left Alone

During the opening weekend of the new Long Bay Theatre in October, founder Greg London kept slipping out of his own show. He told The Post and Courier that he likes to check on the neighborhood while a performance runs. That weekend he saw a shortage of parking right outside the theater and pockets of empty spaces a little farther out. "It's great to see downtown full and that's not normally the case," he said. "Let's find a way to make it work for everyone."

In mid-November, downtown Myrtle Beach gets a larger version of that test. The inaugural Myrtle Beach Songwriters Festival runs Friday, Nov. 13, and Saturday, Nov. 14. It's free, and it spreads more than 50 singer-songwriters, musicians and poets across six downtown venues. Three of those venues share a short stretch of Ninth Avenue North. That's the one street in the Arts and Innovation District the city decided not to tear up this fall. The festival's afternoon runs on the block that was spared, and that block won't stay as it is much longer.

Ninth Avenue North got a one-year reprieve

The city's road projects update on Sept. 14 said work on Ninth Avenue North had been scheduled to start in September 2026 and had been pushed to fall 2027 "to minimize impacts to area businesses."

Here's who sits on that block, according to the festival's venue directory:

• The Tasting Room on 9th, 505 9th Ave. N, Unit A
• The Dolly Llama, 505 9th Ave. N
• Winna's Kitchen, 507 9th Ave. N

Two of the three share an address. In practice, much of the Saturday lineup fits within a few storefronts on one street, which the city has left out of construction for one more year. The Tasting Room on 9th has already shown how to work with downtown's new crowds. During the theater's opening run, London pointed to the restaurant as a business that put together a special "Mary Poppins" menu to match the show.

Saturday, venue by venue

The festival begins Friday, Nov. 13, with a kickoff party at Swig & Swine, 525 Broadway St., from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday's songwriter rounds start at 2 p.m. and continue into the evening. These are the posted Saturday start times at each venue:

Between 2 and roughly 7 p.m., the Ninth Avenue cluster carries much of the lineup, with Winna's Kitchen and The Dolly Llama alternating rounds about every 75 to 85 minutes. The last listed set on that block starts at 7 p.m. at The Tasting Room on 9th, where Bo Roberts and Taylor Lansdale perform. After that, the evening shifts to Grand Strand Brewing Company on North Kings Highway. The indoor stage's final round there starts at 7:20 p.m. with Jared Michael Cline, Trey Calloway and Emily Roth. Outside, festival director Melissa Joiner plays at 9 p.m., followed by an open jam at 10. The festival's grand finale also takes place at Grand Strand Brewing.

A few other sets stand out on the schedule:

1. Chris Tharp, Nevada Smith and Will Ness open the indoor stage at Grand Strand Brewing at 2 p.m.
2. Chuck Brown, Allison Strong and Michelle Raybourn play Winna's Kitchen at 3:15 p.m.
3. Rick Strickland & Lesa Hudson share the 3 p.m. round at Fresh Brewed Coffee House with Drew Jacobs and Will Jackson.
4. Frankie Raye opens The Dolly Llama at 2:30 p.m.

The poetry and writing tent opens at 2 p.m. Readings by Rebekah Williams, Lilith Yurkin, Julia Weaver, Winter Kitchenko and Rita Rose run through the afternoon, with a drum circle at 5:30 and a public open mic at 7. Families with younger kids can use the Kids Corner at First Methodist Church from 2 to 5 p.m. The festival posts updated performance schedules and venue details at MyrtleBeachSongwritersFestival.com.

The festival is presented by the nonprofit Songs That Save Foundation and benefits Help4Kids' Backpack Buddies program, which feeds children across Horry County. WPDE reported that instead of writing checks, the songwriters packed bags of food for the program. Joiner explained the reasoning to the station: "You can't dream, you can't have hope if you're hungry."

Oak Street just reopened, and the work is moving toward Ninth

The walk between Kings Highway and the Ninth Avenue block looks different from how it did a month ago. On Oct. 23, the city reopened the section of Oak Street between Mr. Joe White Avenue and the Nance Plaza parking lot after nine months of construction, WBTW reported. Crews replaced underground infrastructure dating back to the 1930s and added wider sidewalks, new street parking, paver bike lanes and fresh pavement.

That phase is finished, but the work continues. According to WBTW, crews move next to the area around City Hall and then to Broadway Street between City Hall and Ninth Avenue North. The construction is heading toward the Ninth Avenue block, and this year's festival comes before it gets there.

The Highway 501 realignment, known as the RIDE III project, is a separate effort in the same district. It connects the Broadway Street intersection with Seventh Avenue at Oak Street. In its September update, the city said it expected the road to open to traffic in late October once the Broadway intersection and signal work were done, with final paving and other remaining improvements expected to wrap up in spring 2027.

The theater already showed where parking runs out

The Long Bay Theatre at 728 Main St. premiered Oct. 7 with "Mary Poppins," its first show after moving from the Myrtle Beach Mall. According to The Post and Courier, the opening drew sellout crowds and also made parking tight around Broadway, Main and North Oak streets. Tracey Rae Palmer, co-owner of the 40-seat Sun City Cafe, told City Council on Oct. 13 that the 200-seat theater brought at least 100 additional vehicles into the historic district by her estimate.

That was a single 200-seat show. The songwriters festival is free, has no tickets, and spreads people across six venues for most of a Saturday. Mayor Mark Kruea told the paper that the fixes are years away:

"There are solutions in the long-term (Community Improvement Plan) but they're two, three, four, five years away unfortunately, and they're not funded at this point either."

Plans for two parking garages are awaiting approval. City leaders have discussed short-term measures such as a theater shuttle and dinner-and-a-show promotions with downtown restaurants. For festival day, the new street parking on the reopened Oak Street segment adds some spaces. London's point from opening weekend also holds: open spaces were there a little farther from the busiest corner. The festival bills itself as a walkable event, and its venue map is set up so people can park once and get around on foot.

Downtown's calendar from here

The Songwriters Festival comes first in a series of downtown changes that runs through 2027:

The CCU theater will sit across the street from Long Bay, so by early 2027 that corner will have two theaters drawing crowds. If the Songwriters Festival returns next November, the Ninth Avenue block could be close to its own construction start. The 2026 edition is the one where Winna's Kitchen, The Dolly Llama and The Tasting Room on 9th host their rounds on the street as it stands today, with Oak Street newly reopened a short walk away.

Downtown Myrtle Beach is changing street by street, and the timing of each project shapes everyday life around it. If you're watching how the Arts and Innovation District affects the area you call home, The Husted Team is happy to talk it through. Book an Appointment and we'll go over what's finished, what's scheduled, and what's coming in 2027.