September in Myrtle Beach Is Packed. Here Are the Events Worth Putting on Your Calendar.

September on the Grand Strand does not arrive like somebody flipped summer off. It is more like a dimmer switch.

The traffic starts trending down. Saturday check-in lines get shorter. The grocery store stops feeling like a contact sport. Families who spent June, July and August loading beach wagons into elevators head home for school, and suddenly the same stretch of sand that required strategy three weeks ago has room to breathe again.

The water is still warm. The days are still long enough to eat outside. Nobody has packed away the flip-flops. But the volume has been turned down just enough that Myrtle Beach starts feeling like it belongs to the people who live here again.

Around here, we call it local summer.

And if you assumed that meant September was the quiet month, the 2026 calendar would like a word.

Visit Myrtle Beach describes September as the beginning of festival season on the Grand Strand, with smaller post-summer crowds but a calendar full of annual festivals, live music and outdoor events. That combination is exactly why locals wait for it.

The irony of local summer is that there may actually be more to do once traditional summer ends. The difference is who the events seem built for. September trades some of the fireworks-every-night energy for grape stomps, shag dancing, art under the oaks, downtown festivals, farmers markets, car shows, concerts and the kind of weekends where you can accidentally spend six hours outside because nobody is asking when you are leaving for the next attraction.

That is the September worth knowing.

September 2026 Events Around the Grand Strand

If you’re here for the calendar, save this part. September is packed from Little River to Pawleys Island, with festivals, concerts, markets, community events and plenty of reasons to take advantage of local summer.

September in and around Myrtle Beach

9/1: Tuesday Fireworks Extravaganza @ Broadway at the Beach
9/1: Free Live Music: Painted Man @ The Hangout
9/1: Elvis Tribute Matinee @ 1220 Port Dr
9/1–6: Myrtle Beach Pelicans Final Homestand @ Pelicans Ballpark
8/31–9/4: Play Golf Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship
9/2: Travel With the Chamber Information Session
9/3: A Night in Bloom @ Butter & Whisk Co
9/3: Music Movement CWA East Coast Charity Golf Tournament @ Myrtlewood Golf Club
9/3: Music Bingo @ Palmetto Taps
9/3–24: Music on Main Concert Series @ Downtown North Myrtle Beach
9/3–6: La Cage aux Folles @ Theatre of the Republic
9/4: First Friday ArtWalk @ Downtown Myrtle Beach
9/4: Jimmy Buffett Day @ Margaritaville + LandShark
9/4–5: Myrtle Beach Waves of Praise Gospel Fest @ Pavilion Place
9/4–6: Oktoberfest Grand Strand @ Grand Strand Brewing
9/4–6: Myrtle Beach Pelicans Season Finale @ Pelicans Ballpark
9/5: Labor Day Fireworks @ Barefoot Landing
9/5: All Ford Car Show @ Beach Truck RV Center
9/5: JB’s Lowcountry Music Festival @ Pawleys Island
9/5: Tru Sol @ The Landing at the Boathouse
9/5: End of Summer Glow Party @ Springmaid
9/5–6: Labor Day Weekend Campout @ Longs
9/5–13: Fords at the Shore @ Myrtle Beach
9/6: End of Summer Fireworks Festival @ Surfside Beach Pier
9/6: Labor Day Weekend Fireworks @ Broadway at the Beach
9/6: Glow Party @ The Oasis at Smith Jones Park
9/6: Yoga in the Yard @ Crooked Hammock Brewery
9/6: Backyard Brunch & Kids Activities @ Crooked Hammock Brewery
9/6: Get the Led Out: A Celebration of Led Zeppelin @ The Carolina Opry
9/6: Sunday Funday with Julio & The Saltines @ The Boathouse
9/7: Dyno Day @ Let’s Go Automotive & Performance
9/10: CCMC & Team Shelby Cruise In @ Holiday Inn Oceanfront Surfside
9/10–13: La Cage aux Folles @ Theatre of the Republic
9/11: 9/11 Memorial Ceremony @ NMB Park & Sports Complex
9/11: Movie at McLean Park @ North Myrtle Beach
9/11: Puppies @ PGA Tour Superstore
9/11: Mustang Mayor C.D. Swap Meet @ Beaver Bar
9/11: Ultimate Drag Queen Bingo & Drag Show
9/11–13: End of Summer Bash @ Ole Smoky + Yee Haw Brewing
9/11–13: Carolina Cup Surf Fest @ Surfside Beach
9/11–20: Downtown Conway Burger Week
9/12: Little River Patriots Day Festival @ Little River
9/12: Celebrate Surfside Beach Festival @ Surfside Beach
9/12: Endless Summer Blast @ Broadway at the Beach
9/12: Joe Palooza @ Island Bar & Grill
9/12: Pistons & Patriots All American Car Show @ Conway
9/12: Grand Strand Stampede @ Broadway at the Beach
9/12–13: Art in Common @ The Market Common
9/12–13: Georgetown Art & Wine Walk @ Historic Waterfront
9/13: 2nd Annual Battle of the Cakes @ The Market Common
9/14–20: Open Week @ The Yard Gym
9/15–19: Kermet Apio @ Comedy Cabana
9/16: Charlie’s Place Documentary Matinee @ Horry County Museum
9/17: Yappy Hour @ Cooper’s Tavern
9/17–20: 2026 USAB World Series @ The Ripken Experience
9/18: Sounds of Summer Concert Series @ NMB Park & Sports Complex
9/18: Free Show Friday with Bailey Road Band @ The Boathouse
9/18: Southland Festivals Creator Night @ Conway
9/18–19: 12th Annual Grillers Cup @ Lakewood Camping Resort
9/18–27: SOS Fall Migration @ North Myrtle Beach
9/19: SeptemberFest @ Barefoot Landing
9/19: Duplin Grape Stomp @ Barefoot Landing
9/19: Crooktoberfest @ Crooked Hammock Brewery
9/19: 46th Annual Aynor Harvest Hoe-Down @ Downtown Aynor
9/19: Dachshunds of the Grand Strand Weenie Walk
9/19: Keep Surfside Beautiful Beach Sweep @ Surfside Beach
9/19: Masters & Wardens Car, Truck & Motorcycle Show @ Broadway at the Beach
9/19: Loving Fall Fest @ Georgetown Growers Market
9/19: Autumnal Floral Candle Class @ The Quad
9/20: 2nd Annual EatMYR @ The Boathouse
9/22: Brookgreen Labyrinth Walk @ Brookgreen Gardens
9/23: The Piano Men: Elton John & Billy Joel Tribute @ Brookgreen Gardens
9/24: End of Summer Party for a Cause @ The Hangout
9/25: Fused Glass Garden Stakes Workshop @ The Quad
9/25–27: Atalaya Arts & Crafts Festival @ Huntington Beach State Park
9/25–10/4: Myrtle Beach Bike Week Fall Rally @ Grand Strand
9/26: NMB Live! Music & Vendors Festival @ Main Street North Myrtle Beach
9/26: Coastal-Carolina Con @ Myrtle Beach Sports Complex
9/26: Conscious Soul Festival @ The Market Common
9/26: Mystic Maker’s Market @ Myrtle Beach
9/26: Crooktober Family Fun Fest @ Crooked Hammock Brewery
9/26: Live Bluegrass with Wire & Wood @ Horry County Museum
9/26: Pink Ribbon Run @ Little River
9/27: Pawleys Island Farmers Market @ Litchfield Exchange
9/27: Hammock Shops Farmers Market @ Pawleys Island
9/28: 29th Annual John Long Memorial Charity Golf Tournament @ Caledonia Golf & Fish Club
9/29: Candle-Making Creative Workshop @ Tidal Creek Brewhouse
9/30: “Hard to Say Goodbye” Myrtle Beach Pavilion Documentary @ Horry County Museum

Recurring Events

Every Monday: Paid Carolina Shag Lessons @ Fat Harold’s Beach Club
Every Tuesday: Free Carolina Shag Lessons @ Fat Harold’s Beach Club
Every Tuesday: Tuesday Trivia Night @ Dirty Don’s Market Common
Every Tuesday: Line Dancing Classes @ Robert H. Reed Recreation Center
Every Tuesday: Surfside Beach Farmers Market @ Memorial Park
Every Wednesday: Hard Rock Rising @ Hard Rock Cafe Myrtle Beach
Every Wednesday: Spaghetti Wednesday @ Beachfront Kitchen & Bar
Every Wednesday, Friday & Saturday: Myrtle’s Market @ Myrtle Beach
Every Thursday: Music on Main @ Downtown North Myrtle Beach
Every Thursday: Line Dancing Classes @ Robert H. Reed Recreation Center
Every Saturday: Conway Farmers Market @ Downtown Conway
Every Saturday: Valor Park Farmers Market @ The Market Common
Weekly: Farm Store @ Loris
Select Dates: The Carolina Opry @ The Carolina Opry Theater
Daily Through 9/27: Charles Bach Wonders! @ Celebrity Circle
Daily: The Comedy Magic of Michael Bairefoot @ Myrtle Beach Mall

Farmers Markets

Myrtle’s Market (Wed, Fri, Sat), Market Common / Valor Park (Sat), Conway (Sat), Surfside Beach (Tue), Pawleys Island Farmers Market, Hammock Shops Farmers Market + Farm Store in Loris

All Month Long

Legends of Fall Live Entertainment
Murrells Inlet MarshWalk Live Music + Waterfront Dining
Carolina Shag Dancing in North Myrtle Beach
Local Live Music Throughout the Grand Strand
Beach, Fishing, Kayaking, Paddle Boarding + Fall Festival Season

A list that long can start to feel like noise, but a few weekends tell the story of September particularly well. And it starts before Labor Day weekend is even over.

Labor Day Doesn't End Summer Here. It Hands It Back.

The first weekend of September still has one foot firmly planted in summer.

The Myrtle Beach Pelicans close out their home season. The Myrtle Beach Waves of Praise Gospel Fest fills Pavilion Place with two evenings of live gospel music. Surfside Beach sends summer out with fireworks over the pier on September 6, with live music, food trucks, a kids zone and the fireworks launching at approximately 9 p.m.

That last one feels especially appropriate.

There is something very Grand Strand about marking the unofficial end of summer by standing barefoot near the ocean and watching fireworks come off a fishing pier. It is not exactly goodbye. More like acknowledgment. Yes, the season changed. No, we are not going inside yet.

By the following weekend, the tone shifts.

Downtown Conway starts Burger Week. Little River hosts its Patriots Day Festival. Surfside has its Celebrate Surfside Beach Festival. The Market Common brings back Art-In-Common. Georgetown's historic waterfront adds art and wine to the mix. And suddenly a weekend itinerary can involve a farmers market in the morning, an art festival at lunch and live music somewhere else before dinner.

This is where September starts separating itself from August. The events are not necessarily trying to entertain everyone who arrived on vacation that week. They are built around the individual towns that make up the Grand Strand.

And those towns start behaving like towns again.

September 19 Is Basically Its Own Holiday

If there is one Saturday this month that proves the point, it is September 19.

Barefoot Landing hosts SeptemberFest!, built around the Duplin Winery Grape Stomp in Dockside Village. From noon to 5 p.m., participants can literally take off their shoes and stomp grapes while live bands play nearby. Duplin is celebrating its 50th grape harvest this year, and the official stomp ticket includes the experience, a bottle of Fifty Crush and a souvenir cup.

A few steps away, Crooked Hammock Brewery is already leaning into Crooktoberfest, which means North Myrtle Beach has somehow found a way to make grape stomping and Oktoberfest coexist before the calendar technically says fall.

Drive inland and Aynor is doing something completely different.

The 46th Annual Aynor Harvest Hoe-Down takes over town with a parade, arts and crafts, food, live entertainment and the kind of crowd that turns a small Horry County town into one of the busiest places on the Grand Strand for a day. Visit Myrtle Beach notes that what began in 1979 with roughly 1,000 attendees has grown into an event drawing crowds around 25,000.

There are also car and motorcycle events, fall gatherings and smaller community events happening the same day.

This is why a September events guide here gets ridiculous very quickly.

You think you are making a list of things to do. Then you realize three neighboring towns have independently decided to hold festivals on the same Saturday.

North Myrtle Beach Gets Its Streets Back Too

North Myrtle Beach may show the September shift better than anywhere.

From September 18 through 27, the SOS Fall Migration brings shaggers back to Ocean Drive and Main Street. For people who did not grow up around the Carolina coast, shag can sound like another entertainment option. Locally, it is closer to cultural infrastructure.

The dance grew up with beach music and the clubs of the Carolinas, and every migration brings that history back out onto the floor. You do not have to know the steps to understand what is happening. Walk Main Street at night during SOS and you can see generations of people participating in something that belongs specifically to this coastline.

Then, on September 26, Main Street changes identities again.

The City of North Myrtle Beach is launching NMB Live!, a new signature festival replacing the long-running Irish Italian International Festival format. The city is closing Main Street for a one-day event with three stages, more than 150 vendors, food, family activities and live entertainment, with free admission and parking. City officials expect more than 15,000 people for the inaugural event.

That is not a sleepy shoulder-season Saturday.

It is Main Street turned into a town-wide block party precisely when many people assume the beach is winding down.

And maybe that is the larger September pattern: the tourism machine gets quieter just as the individual communities get louder.

Down South, September Looks Different

Murrells Inlet and Pawleys Island have their own version of local summer.

Brookgreen Gardens hosts The Piano Men on September 23, an evening built around the music of Elton John and Billy Joel under the concert tent in the Arboretum. The show runs from 7:30 to 9 p.m., with advance tickets required.

Two days later, across U.S. 17, Huntington Beach State Park begins one of the events that feels most naturally suited to September.

The 51st Annual Atalaya Arts & Crafts Festival runs September 25 through 27 inside and around Atalaya, the Moorish-style winter home of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington. More than 100 artists are expected, alongside local food and live music.

This is not an event that would feel the same in July.

Atalaya needs a little breathing room. The courtyard, the old brick, the palms, the walk between artists' booths and the ocean sitting just beyond the dunes all make more sense when the edge has come off summer.

The festival is $10 per adult per day, with ages 15 and under admitted free, and the official state park page has the full schedule and visitor information.

Then Pawleys Island closes the month with something even more local: the John Long Memorial Charity Golf Tournament at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club on September 28, with proceeds benefiting area nonprofits.

That is the range of September here. One week you are watching artists set up inside a National Historic Landmark. Three days later you are playing a charity scramble underneath Caledonia's live oaks.

The Last Weekend Is Almost Comically Busy

September 25 is also when Myrtle Beach Bike Week's Fall Rally begins.

The 2026 rally runs through October 4, with rides, vendors and events spread across the Grand Strand from North Myrtle Beach toward Georgetown. The official Bike Week organization notes that some participating businesses run all ten days while others use shorter schedules, which is why you may see slightly different rally dates advertised locally.

That means the final weekend of September includes Bike Week, Atalaya, NMB Live!, Coastal-Carolina Con, Conscious Soul Festival and a collection of smaller markets, workshops, concerts and community events happening simultaneously.

It is a strange problem to have.

September used to be described as shoulder season, which makes it sound like something you pass through on the way from summer to fall.

That is not really what the Grand Strand calendar looks like anymore.

September is a season of its own.

The Small Stuff Is Part of It

The major festivals make the headlines, but the smaller weekly events may actually explain local summer better.

Farmers markets are still running in Market Common, Conway, Surfside Beach, Pawleys Island and Myrtle Beach. Valor Park's Saturday market, for example, continues every Saturday through December with local produce and artisan vendors.

There are shag lessons in North Myrtle Beach. Trivia nights. Line dancing. Art walks. Bluegrass at the Horry County Museum. Yoga outside. Candle-making workshops. Small live shows that do not require planning your entire weekend around them.

Those are easy to dismiss when you are building a guide because they are not the reason somebody books a Myrtle Beach vacation.

But that is precisely why they matter.

They are reasons to leave your house when you already live here.

The difference between a tourist destination and a place people actually enjoy calling home is often found in that second category.

This Is the Month Locals Wait For

There is a particular Saturday morning in September when you notice the switch has happened.

You pull onto Kings Highway expecting July traffic and get somewhere ten minutes early. You find a parking space without circling. You walk onto the beach and there is actual sand between your chair and the next family. The ocean is still warm enough to get in, but the urgency is gone.

Summer did not disappear.

It just stopped requiring reservations.

And then you look at the calendar and realize the quieter version of Myrtle Beach somehow comes with more reasons to leave the house.

There is a grape stomp at Barefoot Landing. Shaggers on Main Street. Art inside Atalaya. Fireworks over Surfside Pier. A festival in Aynor. Live music at Brookgreen. Farmers markets on Saturday morning. Bike Week rolling down the coast. A brand-new NMB festival trying to establish its own tradition.

This is what people mean when they talk about local summer.

Not an empty Myrtle Beach.

A Myrtle Beach operating at a different volume.

The beach is still open. The restaurants are still cooking. The music is still playing. But September gives you enough room around all of it to remember that the Grand Strand is not one resort town. It is Conway and Aynor, Little River and North Myrtle, Surfside and Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island and dozens of little pockets in between, each with its own calendar and its own reason to get outside.

The dimmer switch comes down on tourism.

The lights come up on everything else.

For the broader official rundown, Visit Myrtle Beach has also published its 2026 September guide, including many of the month's larger festivals and concerts.

And if you are already calling the Grand Strand home and want to talk about what is happening in the neighborhoods around you, or you are weighing a move here and want someone who knows the difference between visiting Myrtle Beach in July and actually living here in September, Megan Parker would love to hear from you. Let's Connect.