Myrtle Beach Events

Myrtle Beach’s calendar is built around the beach season, with two distinctive traditions of its own.

Society of Stranders — April and September, North Myrtle Beach

Twice a year, several tens of thousands of people come to Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach to dance the shag. The Society of Stranders gatherings run for about ten days each, with the clubs along a few blocks open all day and a floor that stays busy from mid-morning until the early hours. The dancers are largely middle-aged and older, many of them people who learned here as teenagers in the 1950s and 60s, and the music is the beach music catalogue of Carolina rhythm and blues and soul. It is unlike any other American resort event — there is no parade and no ticket, just a town given over to a specific dance for a fortnight — and it has run since the 1980s as a deliberate revival of what the pavilions did before them. The spring gathering in April and the autumn one in September both fill accommodation along the northern Strand.

Motorcycle rallies — May

Two long-established rallies bring very large numbers of riders to the Strand in successive weeks, and the town is loud, busy and fully booked.

Sun Fun Festival and summer fireworks — June to August

Beach events, and fireworks over the ocean on a weekly schedule at the height of the season.

Christmas lights — November to January

Large drive-through and walk-through displays keep the off season going.