Walk down Main Street in Ocean Drive on a November night and you will hear it before you see it: a horn line, a rolling rhythm-and-blues groove and the soft shuffle of loafers on a wooden floor. Beach music is not a memory in North Myrtle Beach. It is still played, still danced to and still celebrated by people who learned the shag as teenagers and by younger dancers who are discovering it for the first time.

Every November, that whole world comes together for the Carolina Beach Music Awards. Fans know them as the Cammys, and in 2026 the 32nd annual show returns to the Alabama Theatre at Barefoot Landing on Sunday, November 8, at 3 p.m. It is part awards ceremony, part concert and part family reunion for a regional music scene that has been going strong for generations.

Whether you grew up on beach music or you are simply curious about the sound that defines this stretch of coast, here is a guide to the awards, the history behind them and the best ways to make a weekend of it.

Carolina Beach Music Awards 2026 at a Glance

Ticket prices vary by seat and year, so check with the Alabama Theatre box office for current pricing and availability. The Alabama Theatre seats close to 2,000 guests, but the best seats for the Cammys tend to go early.

What Are the Cammys?

The Carolina Beach Music Awards honor the people who keep beach music alive. According to Destination North Myrtle Beach, the show recognizes performers, producers, writers, industry leaders and Hall of Famers, celebrating a tradition that its fans proudly note is older than rock and roll. The awards began in 1995 under the name the Cammys, short for Carolina’s Magic Music Years, and the nickname stuck.

The show did not start on the beach. The Horry Independent has reported that the first ceremonies were held in Salisbury, North Carolina, and then in Charlotte before the awards moved to North Myrtle Beach in 1998. It was a natural homecoming. Ocean Drive was one of the places where this music first found its audience, and North Myrtle Beach has been the Cammys’ home ever since.

Awards cover categories such as song, album, vocalist, group, entertainer, DJ, club and radio station. According to the CBMA’s own materials, members of its academy, a mix of industry professionals and fans, vote on most categories, while Hall of Fame selections are made by the organization’s boards. The ceremony is a chance to hear many of the region’s best-loved bands perform on one stage in a single afternoon.

A Short History of Beach Music and the Shag

Beach music grew out of the rhythm-and-blues records that young people heard on jukeboxes in beachfront pavilions and dance halls along the Carolina coast in the years after World War II. According to Visit Myrtle Beach, the sound began evolving in the mid-1940s, though the term beach music itself did not come into wide use until the 1970s. Ocean Drive, along with Carolina Beach in North Carolina, is often named among the places where it mattered most.

The music came with a dance. The shag is a smooth, shuffling partner dance built for sand-dusted floors and hot summer nights, more about footwork and connection than flashy spins. South Carolina named the shag its official state dance in 1984, and in 2001 the state adopted beach music as its official popular music. Today you will find shaggers of every age on the dance floors of Ocean Drive, and many clubs offer lessons for beginners who want to learn the basic step.

If you want to see that culture up close, our guide to Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach is the place to start, and our article on the heart of Ocean Drive looks at how the neighborhood keeps its rhythm.

The CBMA Weekend in Ocean Drive

For many fans, the awards show is the finale of a full weekend. In 2025 the CBMA weekend ran from Thursday through Sunday, with the Ocean Drive Beach & Golf Resort serving as host hotel, dancing at clubs including Fat Harold’s Beach Club, the OD Beach Club and the Galleon, a Saturday showcase with a pig pickin’ that raised money for the organization’s scholarship fund, and an after-party following the Sunday ceremony. The 2026 weekend schedule had not been posted when we checked, so look for updates at cammy.org.

Fat Harold’s Beach Club

No visit to Ocean Drive during Cammys weekend is complete without a stop at Fat Harold’s on Main Street. It is home to the Ocean Drive Shag Club, and Destination North Myrtle Beach notes that it offers free shag lessons. Even if you never leave your bar stool, an evening watching longtime dancers glide across the floor is a lesson in local history.

Other Shag Clubs Along Main Street

Duck’s Beach Club and the OD Arcade & Lounge are two more Ocean Drive names that shaggers know well, and both have been gathering places during the Society of Stranders festivals. Hours and schedules change by season, so check before you go, especially on Sunday and Monday nights.

Beach Music All Year: SOS and Beyond

The Cammys are one of several beach music gatherings in North Myrtle Beach each year. The Society of Stranders, known simply as SOS, grew out of reunions of people who spent their youth dancing in Ocean Drive and has become one of the biggest shag gatherings anywhere. Its Spring Safari is held in late April and early May, and its Fall Migration fills Main Street every September. Our guide to the SOS Fall Migration explains how to plan around it.

Between festivals, live music fills the town year-round. Our roundup of live music venues in North Myrtle Beach lists more places to hear bands, and our Myrtle Beach events calendar highlights concerts and shows across the Grand Strand.

Making an Afternoon of It at Barefoot Landing

The Alabama Theatre sits at Barefoot Landing on the Intracoastal Waterway, so it is easy to turn the awards into a full afternoon and evening. Arrive early to stroll the boardwalk around the lake, browse the shops and grab lunch on the water. Our local’s guide to Barefoot Landing covers restaurants and shops in detail.

Across the waterway, Barefoot Resort & Golf is home to four courses by famous designers, and an early round on Sunday morning pairs nicely with an afternoon at the Cammys. Our story on the history of Barefoot Resort & Golf explains what makes each course special. The Alabama Theatre also launches its holiday season in November, so visitors who extend their stay may be able to catch a Christmas show as well. Check the theatre’s schedule for dates.

Where to Stay for the Carolina Beach Music Awards

Ocean Drive is the heart of the beach music scene, and staying there means you can walk to Main Street clubs after the show. Windy Hill is the closest beach section to the Alabama Theatre and Barefoot Landing. Crescent Beach sits comfortably between the two, and Cherry Grove on the north end offers quieter mornings and marsh views when you need to rest your dancing feet.

Groups of friends who travel together for the Cammys often book oceanfront homes with room for everyone and a big deck for a pre-show gathering. Couples may prefer oceanfront condos, where you can come home from Main Street and fall asleep to the ocean. For the rest of the trip, see our pillar guide to things to do in Myrtle Beach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Come for the Cammys, Stay for the Shag

The Carolina Beach Music Awards are a celebration of a sound and a dance that grew up on this coast. Spend Sunday afternoon cheering for the region’s best bands, then follow the music back to Main Street and let the beach take care of the rest.

Sources: Destination North Myrtle Beach event listing (2026); Carolina Beach Music Awards (cammy.org) FAQ and 2025 weekend schedule; The Horry Independent; Visit Myrtle Beach. Event times, ticket prices and weekend activities can change, so confirm with the Alabama Theatre and the CBMA before you go.

Every September, Main Street in North Myrtle Beach fills with a sound you can set your watch by: the smooth four-count shuffle of leather soles on hardwood, sliding under horns and harmonies that first drifted out of these same doorways generations ago. The license plates tell the story — Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio — as thousands of dancers make their annual pilgrimage back to the few blocks of pavement where their dance was born.

This is the SOS Fall Migration, and in 2026 it returns to the Ocean Drive district for ten full days, Friday, September 18 through Sunday, September 27. The Society of Stranders — the membership organization that has kept the Carolina Shag thriving since 1980 — turns Main Street and its legendary clubs into the beach music capital of the world, with live bands and DJs from midday until the small hours, dance contests, lessons for newcomers, and two street parties that shut down Main Street entirely.

And this year carries a twist no migration has ever had: the city’s brand-new signature festival, NMB Live!, makes its debut on the very same street on Saturday, September 26 — smack in the middle of the migration’s final weekend. More on that collision of good fortune below, but the short version is this: late September 2026 will be the busiest, most musical stretch Main Street has seen in years, and the smart travelers are locking in their oceanfront home base now.

Here’s the full local guide — what SOS actually is, how the week flows, which clubs to know, and how to plant yourself close enough to walk home from the dance floor.

What Is SOS? The Society Behind the Migration

The Society of Stranders takes its name from the Grand Strand itself, and its mission is beautifully simple: keep the Carolina Shag — and the beach music it dances to — alive and kicking. Founded in 1980, the society now draws members from shag clubs across the country through the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs, and it stages three headline gatherings in North Myrtle Beach each year: the Spring Safari in April, Junior SOS for young dancers in July, and the Fall Migration each September.

The migration works on a refreshingly old-school system. An SOS membership — about $35 a year — is the golden ticket: one card gets you into every participating club, day and night, for the full run of all three annual events. You can join through a hometown shag club before you travel, or simply sign up when you arrive; during migration week, membership tents and the SOS store in the Ocean Drive district handle cards, schedules, and merchandise. No wristband lines, no ticket apps — just a card in your wallet and ten days of open doors.

Who comes? Longtime shaggers who have been making this trip for forty years, first-timers who learned the basic step on YouTube last winter, beach music musicians and DJs, and plenty of folks who don’t dance a lick but know a good street party when they see one. The migration skews adult — think of it as the grown-ups’ answer to spring break, conducted at a smooth 120 beats per minute.

The Shag: How a Dance Made a Town

To understand why thousands of people rearrange their Septembers around this event, you have to understand what the shag means here. Back in the 1940s, young people gathered at the open-air pavilions and jukebox joints along Ocean Drive, slowing down the jitterbug to suit hot nights and rhythm-and-blues records, until a new dance emerged — smooth on top, busy below the knees, built for two people and a wooden floor. They called it the shag, and the music it favored became known simply as beach music.

The dance never left. South Carolina made the shag its official state dance in 1984, and the Ocean Drive district has held onto its role as the dance’s spiritual home with the devotion of a town that knows exactly what it has. The OD Pavilion at the Horseshoe — billed as the last open-air dance pavilion of its kind on the East Coast — still stands where Main Street meets the sand. The clubs that line the street have been trading songs and dancers back and forth for decades. When the migration rolls in each fall, it isn’t a festival visiting a venue; it’s a family coming home.

If you want the deeper tour of the street itself — the shops, the restaurants, the history on every corner — our local’s guide to Main Street walks it block by block.

Fall Migration 2026 at a Glance

Ten days is a lot of dancing. Here are the anchors around which migration veterans build their week:

Detailed daily schedules — bands, DJs, tea parties, lessons, and contests — are published by the Society of Stranders as the event approaches; the SOS tents in the district carry printed schedules all week.

Fun Sunday and Fun Monday: The Block Parties

If the migration has a beating heart, it’s the pair of street parties on the first weekend. On Fun Sunday and Fun Monday — September 20 and 21 this year — Main Street closes to traffic and becomes exactly what it was always meant to be: a dance floor with an ocean at one end. Bands play, vendors line the curbs, raffles hand out prizes, and the street fills shoulder-to-shoulder with dancers of every vintage, from couples who shagged here in high school to grandkids learning the step between the food stands.

Fun Monday holds special status as the only Monday of the entire migration, and regulars treat it as the single biggest day of the event — the one where hotel elevators empty early and the street stays full until the last band packs up. If you can only sample one day of Fall Migration, make it this one. Wear comfortable shoes, come thirsty, and don’t be surprised when a stranger extends a hand and pulls you into the dance. That’s not an interruption of the event; that is the event.

A logistical note for that weekend: with Main Street closed and thousands in town, parking near the district gets scarce by mid-morning. Staying within walking distance solves the problem entirely — more on that below — and golf carts, the unofficial vehicles of the Ocean Drive district, fill the side streets.

The Clubs: Where the Music Lives

The migration’s true venues are the beach music clubs that hold down Main Street and its surroundings year-round — rooms where the dance floors are worn smooth in the middle and the walls are papered with half a century of photographs.

Fat Harold’s Beach Club at 212 Main Street is the acknowledged capitol of the shag world, a sprawling club where live bands play daytime sets during the migration and DJs spin beach music deep into the night. Its walls double as an informal museum of the dance, and its floor sees more shag steps in a migration week than most towns see in a decade. A few doors away, Duck’s Night Life has been packing dancers into its double-sided rooms since 1983, and the OD Arcade & Lounge — compact, loud, and beloved — runs one of the busiest floors in town from lunchtime onward. Down at the oceanfront, the Spanish Galleon at the OD Beach & Golf Resort adds its big room to the circuit, and the open-air OD Pavilion at the Horseshoe lets you dance with the Atlantic itself as a backdrop.

Part of the migration’s charm is the stroll between them. Clubs sit close enough that the week becomes a gentle circuit — a set here, a cold drink there, a favorite DJ announced on a chalkboard down the street — with Pirate’s Cove Bar & Grill and its rooftop deck offering a perch above the whole parade, and Flynn’s Irish Tavern, in its converted former jail, standing by for the night you need an acoustic set and a proper pint instead of another sixteen songs.

The Biggest Week Main Street Has Ever Seen

Now for the 2026 wrinkle that makes this year’s migration one for the scrapbooks. For the first time, the migration’s final weekend collides — happily — with the debut of NMB Live!, the City of North Myrtle Beach’s new signature festival, which takes over Main Street on Saturday, September 26 from 10 AM to 4 PM with three stages of live music, more than 150 vendors, a Kids’ Zone, and free admission.

Think about what that Saturday looks like on the ground: a daytime street festival with yacht rock, country, and party bands playing to festival crowds — flowing straight into an evening when the beach music clubs are packed with migration dancers celebrating their last big night. Two generations of Main Street’s musical identity, sharing the same pavement on the same day. The street’s restaurants and shops will be open and busy through all of it.

The practical takeaway: if you’re eyeing the second half of the migration, the September 25–27 weekend will be the most in-demand stretch of the entire fall in North Myrtle Beach. Rentals near Main Street for that weekend will not linger on the market. Consider yourself told.

Earlier in the week, the city’s own free concert series joins the party from within: the Music on Main season finale brings Gary Lowder & Smokin’ Hot — a beach music favorite — to the Horseshoe on Thursday, September 24, at 6:30 PM. A free open-air beach music show in the middle of a shag migration is about as on-the-nose as this town gets, and the Horseshoe will be dancing.

Beyond the Dance Floor: Days at the Migration

Even devoted shaggers need daylight hours, and late September delivers some of the finest of the year. The ocean holds its summer warmth deep into fall — comfortably swimmable, with the beaches wide, quiet, and lit in that soft autumn gold that photographers chase. Mornings before the clubs open are made for long walks on the sand in Cherry Grove Beach, a coffee-in-hand stroll on the Cherry Grove Pier, or a late breakfast at Hoskins Restaurant, the Main Street institution that has been fueling this town since 1948.

Golfers pair the migration with tee times as naturally as bacon pairs with eggs — the courses around North Myrtle Beach hit prime fall condition in late September, and a morning round followed by an evening on the dance floor is a combination plenty of migration couples have refined over decades. Non-dancing companions have the full run of the area’s diversions, from Barefoot Landing’s shops and shows to the wider universe of things to do in Myrtle Beach, and the area events calendar stays busy straight through the fall.

And if the migration puts the season’s hook in you, you’re in luck — late September is merely the opening act of the region’s best-kept season. Our guide to a fall vacation in North Myrtle Beach maps the festivals, waterfront events, and warm-ocean weekends that run deep into autumn.

Where to Stay for Migration Week

Migration veterans will tell you the single most important decision of the week is where you sleep — because where you sleep determines whether you drive to the dance or walk home from it. The Ocean Drive section is ground zero: stay here and every club, both street parties, the Music on Main finale, and NMB Live! sit within an easy stroll, with the beach waiting outside your door for the mornings after. An oceanfront condo near Main Street is the classic migration setup for couples — balcony coffee at sunrise, dancing shoes by the door.

Groups traveling together — and the migration is thick with shag club crews making it an annual reunion — do well in an oceanfront home rental, where a full kitchen and a big porch turn the between-dance hours into their own party. Those who want the music at arm’s length rather than underfoot find their sweet spot in Crescent Beach or Windy Hill, a five-to-ten-minute drive south — close enough for every event, far enough that the only nighttime sound is the surf.

One honest word of timing: migration week is one of the strongest fall booking periods of the year in the Ocean Drive area, and the NMB Live! overlap on the final weekend will only tighten the market. September’s rates are friendlier than summer’s, but the walkable inventory goes first. If this article has you humming beach music already, don’t sit on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Event details verified as of August 2026 via the Society of Stranders (shagdance.com), the City of North Myrtle Beach (nmb.us), and area event listings. Dates, schedules, and membership details are subject to change — confirm with official sources before traveling. Related reading: the debut of NMB Live! on Main Street, our local’s guide to Main Street, and planning a fall vacation in North Myrtle Beach.