Most residents of Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand made their first trip for summer vacation and for most folks, the summer season officially begins June 1st. The Grand Strand sees some of the sunniest days of the year in June, and there are plenty of great events in addition to the great weather.

The Carolina Country Music Fest

1171 Celebrity Circle, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577

June 6 – June 9, 2019

This year’s Carolina Country Music Fest is scheduled for the first weekend in June. The Carolina Country Music Fest is a three-day event filled with some of the hottest chart-topping country artists, as well as exposing country fans to scads of the genre’s rising stars. Myrtle Beach hosts the festival on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. This festival includes more than 30 musical acts.

Most everyone knows that the Myrtle Beach area and the Grand Strand is the birthplace of Carolina beach music and the Carolina Shag. Not so many know that, over the years, the Myrtle Beach and Grand Strand area has also produced numerous famous country stars. Carolina Opry, a country-music-styled variety show, was founded in 1986 by Calvin Gilmore, a well-known country singer, producer, and entrepreneur. It was one of the first family-friendly entertainment venues that produced live music on the Grand Strand. The venue turned Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand into one of the preeminent places for country music on the East Coast. Plenty of country singers from the Myrtle Beach area like Josh Turner, John Berry, and Bill Anderson have broken out into the mainstream and have performed for audiences all over the United States.

This year’s Carolina Country Music Fest will be headlined by Alabama and Dierks Bentley at the former Myrtle Beach Pavilion site, just steps from the beautiful Myrtle Beach Boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean. Alabama got its start as the house band at The Bowery, a honky-tonk in the heart of Myrtle Beach, just a stone’s throw from the festival location. Alabama hits include “My Home’s in Alabama”, “She’s a Lady Down on Love”, “Song of the South”, “Mountain Music”, “Feels so Right”, and “Tennessee River.”

After playing to crowds of more than 30,000 in each of the first four years, the Carolina Country Music Fest looks to be bigger than ever in 2019. Two stages will provide non-stop music for four days and allow patrons to explore the concert grounds, check out the food, drink and souvenir vendors, or take a break from the show and go for a stroll down the beach. The Country Music Fest offers a little of Nashville’s polish and a lot of the raw soul of South Carolina’s local up-and-coming talent.

While most people associate the Grand Strand summers with live music, golfing, fishing, or lounging on the sixty miles of white sand beaches, summer in the Myrtle Beach area is also the perfect time to expand cultural horizons. While the Grand Strand may not have the Museum of Modern Art or the Guggenheim, there is no lack of fine art, folk art, arts and crafts, and everything in between. The Grand Strand has no lack of galleries and museums and outdoor art shows and sales throughout the summer.

Art Museum of Myrtle Beach

3100 S. Ocean Blvd, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577 

Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm & Sunday, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Also known as the Myrtle Beach Art Museum, the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is located just steps away from the sandy beach in an old beach cottage. The free attraction is open Tuesday-Sunday throughout the year and features 11 galleries with regional, national, and international art that changes frequently. The Myrtle Beach Art Museum is a nonprofit attraction and is great for the whole family. Exhibits opening in June include:

Can’t You Sea? – Ocean Plastic ARTifacts

June 15 – September 8, 2019

Art is a powerful medium for its ability to communicate important social, political, and environmental issues in a way that is clear and uncompromising but at the same time, playful and beautiful in its approach. “Can’t You Sea?” is an exhibition of art that brings awareness to one of our world’s most immediate and biggest environmental problems: plastic ocean pollution. Every Grand Strand resident cares about the sea. It’s one of the reasons we live in the Myrtle Beach area. “Can’t You Sea?” is an exhibit that should not be missed by anyone who cares about the coast.

The ocean contains an estimated 150 million tons of plastic, with 8 million tons added annually—equivalent to a garbage truckload every minute (2015 study). Plastic ocean pollution injures and kills marine life, spreads toxins, and poses a potential threat to human health.

This global environmental issue has been dramatically elevated over the past three years, and the Art Museum of Myrtle Beach is proud to bring awareness and to become a part of the discussion of ocean plastic pollution to Myrtle Beach and Grand Strand residents and its summertime visitors.

“Can’t You Sea?” is an exhibition of ARTifacts created by six artists/activists: Dianna Cohen, Alejandro Duran, Sayaka Ganz, Pam Longobardi, Aurora Robson and Kirkland Smith, who employ discarded plastic as both an artistic medium and as subject matter. While helping make the world a better place by keeping plastic out of our oceans, beaches, and waterways, these artists are bringing awareness to this increasing environmental threat by using that plastic to make beautiful art objects that speak to the dangers of ocean plastic pollution.

Los Angeles based visual artist Dianna Cohen is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC). Cohen uses plastic in her artwork to make a visual and social impact. With plastic bags as her primary material, Cohen is interested in exploring the material’s relationship to culture, media, toxicity, and the world at large.

Through the medium of photography, Alejandro Duran arranges the plastic debris he finds washed up on Mexico’s Caribbean coast into colorful, fantastical landscapes that surprise and delight the eye.

Japanese-born artist Sayaka Ganz calls her style 3D Impressionism. Utilizing reclaimed plastic objects like brush strokes, Ganz creates fluid marine sculptures.

Pam Longobardi of Atlanta, GA, is the creator of the Drifters Project which addresses global plastic pollution and the changing ocean. Working solo or with communities, Longobardi has cleaned beaches of plastic all over the world, removing thousands of pounds of material from the natural environment and re-situating it within the cultural context through her art, which ranges in media from painting and photography to sculpture and installation.

Aurora Robson is a multi-media artist known predominantly for her abstract sculptural work made of plastic intercepted from the waste stream in an effort to shift negative behaviors. Robson founded Project Vortex, an international collective of artists, designers, and architects, who also work with plastic debris to inspire others to rethink and reinvent plastic waste in innovative ways that promote creative stewardship of our global waterways.

South Carolina native Kirkland Smith creates large-scale assemblages with post-consumer materials she collects from neighbors and friends’ waste, thereby keeping them out of our water systems.

“Can’t You Sea?” is sure to be an exciting visual experience for Art Museum of Myrtle Beach visitors. The museum is also developing a series of educational programs for all ages designed to accommodate the exhibition’s conservation efforts, including a lecture series titled Planet or Plastic.

The Art of Emily Esdaile Weston (1810 – 1886)

June 4 – September 1, 2019

The museum will open an exhibit, The Art of Esdaile Weston, on June 4, 2019. The exhibit is free to the public. The pencil and pen and ink drawings and watercolors, dating from the 1840s to the 1860s, are on loan and will be exhibited through September 1, 2019.

Esdaile Weston was the British wife of Plowden C. J. Weston, a 19th-century owner of Laurel Hill Plantation, the north section of Brookgreen Gardens’ property. According to information provided by Brookgreen, the collection offers unique views of the buildings, structures and grounds of Laurel Hill and Hagley, Weston’s Waccamaw Neck properties, of Snow Hill at Conway and his seashore residence, “Weston’s Zoyland,” known today as Pelican Inn on Pawleys Island.

In addition to the landscape paintings and architectural drawings, there are many watercolors of native flora and fauna. Emily Weston also made drawings of Camp Marion during the Civil War.

The Art of Emily Esdaile Weston exhibit is an opportunity to see the Grand Strand as it once was.

Summer Art Shows and Sales

Brookgreen Art Festival

1931 Brookgreen Garden Drive, Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

June 1 – 2, 2019, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm

Free with Brookgreen Garden admission

Join Brookgreen Gardens for their Art Festival this June. The two-day event takes place from 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM on June 1 and 2 will feature a variety of artists and authors that will meet with visitors. There will also be demonstrations. This event is free with garden admission so come early and make a day of it, exploring one of the nation’s largest collection of outdoor sculpture. Pack a picnic or have lunch or dinner at the Garden’s The Pavilion Restaurant.

Art in the Park

Valor Park at The Market Common, 1120 Farrow Parkway, Market Common, Myrtle Beach

June 29 – 30, 2019, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Visitors can stroll through Art in the Park and soak in the artistic creativity of more than 40 artists. The two-day event is presented by the Waccamaw Arts & Crafts Guild and features jewelry makers, woodwork, glass art, photos, painting and almost anything else you can imagine.

Art in the Park is an artist-run venue, held 4 weekends a year in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is a popular destination for artists and customers alike.

Artist may submit only original work and high-quality prints or casts of their original work. No resale items and no items that fall outside of the visual arts and crafts category are accepted. For Art in the Park, visual art is defined as (but is not limited to): painting, sculpture, Woodworking, photography, jewelry, fabric, glass, metal, pottery, stone, and mixed media works.

2019 is the 47th year for this local Myrtle Beach event. Art in the Park is the Grand Strand’s premier outdoor show and sale, hosted by the oldest art guild in the area, Waccamaw Arts & Crafts Guild, which was established in 1969. Since 1972, Art in the Park has hosted artists from all over the country working in a variety of mediums. The extraordinary success of Art in the Park relates directly to the high quality of the art and fine art crafts that are juried into these shows. Art in the Park, Myrtle Beach, SC is a preferred destination for artists and art lovers. There is something for everyone at Art in the Park.

Farmers Market on Deville Street at The Market Common

Deville Street at The Market Common, 4017 Deville Street, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577

Recurring weekly on Saturday until September 28, 2019, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

(843) 839-3500

The Trembley Group Real Estate recently relocated its offices to The Market Common, the center of all that’s happening in Myrtle Beach. Twice per week during the summer, The Market Common hosts its Farmers Market on Deville Street every Wednesday and Saturday. Purveyors of produce, baked goods, and handmade items will be set up on Saturdays, from 10 AM to 3 PM, and (new for this year) Wednesdays from, 3 PM until 7 PM, all along Deville Street. The Farmers Market season will run through all of June and will continue each Wednesday and Saturday until the end of September.

Cool Summer Evenings at Brookgreen Gardens

1931 Brookgreen Garden Dr, Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

Every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm throughout June

Free with Brookgreen Garden admission

Experience twilight at Brookgreen Gardens during the Cool Summer Evenings with live entertainment every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings during the summer. Performances are free with garden admission and admission to the garden is free to members. The concerts are rain or shine and will take place throughout the month of June on the Pavilion Concert Field in Oak Allee.

Bring a lawn chair or a blanket, sit back, relax, and enjoy live music from local and regional bands. Concerts begin at 7 PM and end at 9 PM. Sing along, dance, and enjoy the talents of local and regional favorite choirs and bands like Tru Sol Band, Prettier than Matt, The Paul Grimshaw Band, and Oracle Blue. Beverages and light refreshments will be available for purchase.

Come early and spend the day. Have dinner and stay for the music. Have a picnic in one of the designated picnic areas or The Pavilion Restaurant is open until 7:00 PM on concert evenings as are The Rainey Galleries. The Welcome Center is open until 7:30 PM.

Need help? Call Keller Williams The Trembley Group at 843.945.1880 ext. 1 and we’ll help you look for the perfect listing or buyers agent!

At Keller Williams The Trembley Group, we pride ourselves on being the experts at more than just selling real estate. We are local residents, some of us have been here for a lifetime. The rest of us will be here until the end of time. We love living, working, and playing in the diverse backyard of Coastal Carolina, and look forward to helping you live and love your dreams soon too. Please reach out to us by phone or email for personalized service and one-on-one advice. 

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