What's on around Myrtle Beach in November 2026

The drive-through gate at 150 Citizens Circle in North Myrtle Beach opens for the season on Monday, November 23, and the city runs it most nights from then through December 30. Eleven days before that, on North Oak Street in Myrtle Beach, the Dickens Christmas Show takes over the convention center for its forty-fifth year.

November around Horry County turns on three dates: the general election on the 3rd, the Dickens Christmas Show from the 12th through the 15th, and Monday the 23rd, when the Great Christmas Light Show opens in North Myrtle Beach.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in South Carolina through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I work out of Bluffton, down the coast in Beaufort County, and I have not been to most of these myself. Every date below comes from the organizer, the venue, the town, the county or the visitor bureau, as each one has published it for 2026. Anything I could only find on a previous year's listing was left out of the dated list, and the ones I had to leave out are named near the bottom. I checked all of it on October 24, 2026. If you are looking at homes anywhere from Little River down to Surfside Beach this fall, the Grand Strand buyer's guide covers Horry County and the towns inside it.

Election day is Tuesday, November 3

Horry County Voter Registration and Elections has the statewide general election on Tuesday, November 3, with polls open from seven in the morning to seven in the evening. You will need a photo ID. In-person early voting ran from October 19 through October 31. The deadline to apply for a mailed ballot was five in the afternoon on Friday, October 23. By the time this month starts the only ways left are election day itself or a ballot you already have in hand, and a completed mailed ballot has to be in the county office's hands by seven that evening.

The races and questions differ by where you live in the county, and the South Carolina Election Commission's own voter page will print your sample ballot and your polling place from your address. I found no confirmed countywide referendum for this election. A Horry County 1 percent local option sales tax question was reported as a possibility back in the spring, and I could not find anything placing it on the ballot. Your own sample ballot is the thing to read here.

Property taxes here are worth understanding before you compare two addresses, because the rate depends on whether the home is the one you live in. Applying for the 4 percent legal residence rate in South Carolina walks through the application and the deadline, and it is something you file rather than something the county hands you.

The Carolina Opry starts its Christmas run on the 2nd

The Carolina Opry Theater's own calendar opens the Christmas Special on Monday, November 2 at seven in the evening and runs it through December 31. Evening shows are at seven and matinees at one in the afternoon, with twenty matinees across the run. The theater is on North Kings Highway.

Two Chanticleer home football Saturdays in Conway

Coastal Carolina's athletics schedule has two home games at Brooks Stadium this month. Old Dominion comes in on Saturday, November 7 for homecoming, which the school has given a Black Out theme. Arkansas State follows on Saturday, November 14 for senior day, which the school is also running as its Salute to Service game for military members and first responders. Kickoff times for both were still listed as to be announced when I checked. The Chanticleers close the regular season on the road, at Louisiana on the 21st and at James Madison on the 28th.

Downtown Conway in November

Conway Downtown Alive's event list runs the homecoming parade through downtown on Friday, November 6 at 3:30 in the afternoon, the night before the game. Its past-events section still shows a four o'clock parade on a November 7, which belongs to an earlier year, so the 3:30 time on the current list is the one I would go with. The Holiday Open House follows on Sunday, November 8 from one to four, with the downtown shops open. Black Friday starts at eight in the morning on November 27, and Small Business Saturday is the 28th.

Conway's Christmas tree lighting is on Thursday, December 3 at six in the evening at Main Street and Third Avenue, which is one week past the end of this month. The Rivertown Christmas evenings follow on the Thursdays after it. The Conway page covers the river town itself and the one question that changes a tax bill there, which is whether an address is inside the city limits.

Veterans Day is on a Wednesday this year

Veterans Day falls on Wednesday, November 11. The City of Myrtle Beach's Military Appreciation Days page has its ceremony at eleven that morning and lists the location as still to be determined, so that is the page to check in the first week of the month. The city's parade is a separate event held in May, and it is not a November one.

The county's military history runs through the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base land at what is now The Market Common. How VA loans work in South Carolina covers entitlement, the funding fee and what a South Carolina closing does and does not ask of a veteran.

The convention center is booked most of the month

The Myrtle Beach Convention Center's own calendar carries five November events. The Showstopper Dance Convention runs the 6th through the 8th. The Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association holds its conference and trade show from the 16th to the 18th. A Collectors Expo takes the hall on the 21st and 22nd, and the WMM National Missionary Movement Convention closes the month from the 25th to the 27th.

The big one is the Dickens Christmas Show, and the show's own FAQ has it running Thursday, November 12 through Sunday, November 15 in its forty-fifth year, with a Victorian holiday marketplace filling the hall. One older City of Myrtle Beach release still carries a November 14 through 17 run from a previous year, and the organizer's dates are the current ones.

The weekend of the 13th brings songwriters downtown and artists to Valor Park

The Myrtle Beach Songwriters Festival's own site has its 2026 edition on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14, free to the public, with more than fifty local, regional and touring songwriters. Visit Myrtle Beach's listing puts the kickoff party on the Friday from six to nine at Swig and Swine, then rounds across downtown on the Saturday, ending with a finale at Grand Strand Brewing Company. Other named venues include Fresh Brewed Coffee House, Winna's Kitchen, The Tasting Room on 9th and The Dolly Llama. One Visit Myrtle Beach calendar page still shows an October 24 and 25 run, which disagrees with every other source and looks like a data error.

Art in the Park comes back to Valor Park the same Saturday. The Market Common's event page has it on November 14 and 15 from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, free, with the Waccamaw Arts and Crafts Guild running it. The guild's own Art in the Park page lists that same November 14 and 15 weekend for 2026. The description on the Market Common page also mentions a November 9 and 10 weekend, and that one came off an earlier year's listing.

Five home basketball games at the HTC Center

Coastal Carolina's men's basketball schedule opens the regular season at home against Eastern Michigan on Monday, November 2 at seven in the evening, in the first of two games against Mid-American Conference opponents. USC Upstate follows on the 9th at seven, Virginia University of Lynchburg on the 12th at seven, and Campbell on the 24th at seven. Western Illinois closes the month at home on the 28th at a time still to be announced. All five are at the HTC Center on the Conway campus.

Farmers markets, and how long they run

The Town of Surfside Beach's market page runs its farmers market on Tuesdays at Memorial Park from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, and the 2026 season goes all the way to December 15. The town's own calendar lists November 3, 10, 17 and 24. A separate arts and crafts vendors market runs at the same park on Thursdays, with November 5 and 12 on the calendar.

The Saturday market at Valor Park in The Market Common also runs from ten to three. I could not find a published end date for its 2026 season, so that one is in the unconfirmed list below rather than here. Same for the Saturday morning market in downtown Conway, which has seasonal hours and no posted 2026 calendar I could find.

Holiday lights open the week of Thanksgiving

The City of North Myrtle Beach's page opens the drive-through light show on Monday, November 23 and runs it through December 30, closed on Thanksgiving Day and on Christmas Day. The same page gives the gate hours as 5:30 to 9:30 in the evening. Santa's Village opens on Friday, November 27 and runs Thursday through Sunday until December 6, then nightly from December 10. The park is at 150 Citizens Circle. The North Myrtle Beach page covers the city itself, from Cherry Grove down to Windy Hill.

The lights go on three days before that public opening, for the city's own run through them. The city's Dashing Through the Glow page has the two-mile walk and run on Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, with park entry from 5:30 to 6:45 in the evening and a seven o'clock start. Tickets are bought ahead rather than at the gate, and spectators are not admitted.

Downtown Myrtle Beach lights up on Friday, November 27, the same night Santa's Village opens up the coast. The Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance opens Winter Wonderland at the Beach on Friday, November 27 and runs it through January 2, with free light displays nightly from five to nine at Plyler Park and along the Boardwalk. North Myrtle Beach lights its own Christmas tree at McLean Park on Tuesday, December 1, which lands just past this month.

Thanksgiving morning brings two turkey trots

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26. The Myrtle Beach Turkey Trot's registration page has its twentieth running that morning, with the 5K off at eight from Grand Park Lake in The Market Common, on the Farrow Parkway side between Nevers and Hackler streets. A free fifty-yard Gobbler Kids' Dash follows at nine, and parking in the Farrow garage and the side streets is free.

Up the coast, the North Myrtle Beach Turkey Trot holds its eighth running the same morning at eight, at Barefoot Landing, with its own kids' dash alongside. Both races ask you to register online.

Events I could not confirm for this year

Several things turn up on November lists around here that I could not pin to a 2026 date from the organizer, the venue, the town or the visitor bureau, so none of them is in the list above.

The Mythical and Medieval Fest has two dates going around and no organizer page I could find to settle them. One listing site gives it a November 7 start and another gives November 15 and 16. The pattern in past years was two weekends, which would fit both, and that is a guess rather than a confirmed date.

The Carolina Beach Music Awards show up as a November 8 afternoon show at the Alabama Theatre on two resort listing pages, and on nothing belonging to the awards or the theater.

The Alabama Theatre's own Christmas production and the Christmas show at Pirates Voyage both run every November, and neither had posted a 2026 start date I could find. The only Pirates Voyage dates I could get belonged to the 2025 season.

The Saturday farmers markets at Valor Park and in downtown Conway have confirmed hours and no confirmed 2026 season end, so I have not put a last Saturday on either one.

Taste of the Town at the convention center is listed with its date still to be announced. The Myrtle Beach Invitational, the early-season college basketball tournament that has been played at the HTC Center, had no 2026 dates posted when I checked. And the Plantation Lakes and Kingston Resorts turkey trots appear on registration sites without dates I could confirm against an organizer page.

Nearby, and outside Horry County

Brookgreen Gardens' own event page opens Nights of a Thousand Candles on Friday, November 27, in sessions from four to nine in the evening, running into early January. The gardens are in Georgetown County rather than Horry, on the Waccamaw Neck off U.S. 17, and they are close enough to most of this county to be a normal evening out. Brookgreen says its own site and the ticket company Leap Events are the only places to buy tickets. The Murrells Inlet page covers the village and the county line that runs through it, which matters on a 29576 address.

The Murrells Inlet 2020 oyster roast at Wicked Tuna also turns up on November 7 lists, on resort pages rather than the organizer's, so it is in the unconfirmed group.

New around Horry County this year

The airport finished a terminal and started on a runway. Myrtle Beach International opened a 50,000 square foot addition with six new gates in December 2025, and My Horry News reported officials saying it came in about six weeks early and about $4.5 million under budget. A temporary runway on the general aviation side was scheduled to start construction in February 2026 and to take roughly twenty months, so the airport can keep flying while the primary runway is rebuilt. A security checkpoint expansion is due to start construction this fall.

Breeze keeps adding routes out of it. WMBF News covered the launch of its Atlantic City nonstop on October 22, 2026, flying Thursdays and Sundays. Earlier in the month, on October 13, the airline announced eleven more routes for 2027, which would take its own nonstop network at the airport to twenty-five destinations and make it the largest carrier there.

Highway 501 is being widened. WMBF News reported in May that the new outside lanes between Gardner Lacy Road and S.C. 544 were in place with the surface not yet final. At the end of August SCDOT told the station that completion had moved from a November 30 target to the spring of 2027. New traffic signals go in starting in February, and the final layer of asphalt goes down in the spring. It is one of the projects paid for by RIDE, Horry County's Road Improvement and Development Effort, which runs on the countywide one-cent sales tax that voters renewed in 2024. If you are weighing a home in Carolina Forest against one closer to Conway, that corridor is the drive both of them share.

The Carolina Bays Parkway extension is still in design. Horry County's project page describes the final phase as a new limited-access freeway from S.C. 9 to the North Carolina line, and WMBF News reported in April that NCDOT is weighing new design options after public feedback. The joint SCDOT and NCDOT public hearing summary says the North Carolina stretch is not funded for right of way or for construction in that state's 2024 to 2033 plan. The South Carolina stretch is funded in SCDOT's plan, with right of way starting in 2026 and construction in 2028.

A new playground opened in Carolina Forest. My Horry News reported the inclusive playground at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center opened in August 2026, a $1.5 million county project paid for through impact fees and life-cycle replacement money.

Two manufacturers are coming online in Conway. The South Carolina Department of Commerce announced that Ocean Craft Marine chose Bucksport Marine Park for its United States manufacturing headquarters, a $10.8 million investment creating 93 jobs, with operations expected online by the end of 2026. WPDE reported a $4.6 million Coastal Ready Mix concrete plant on Mount Pisgah Cemetery Road, creating 19 jobs and also due to start up in 2026.

A job that starts here changes which documents a lender reads, and it matters early whether you are taking a salaried position or working for yourself once you arrive. Getting pre-approved in South Carolina covers what gets reviewed before anybody writes a letter.

Common questions

What is happening around Myrtle Beach at Thanksgiving 2026?

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26. Two turkey trots run that morning at eight, one from Grand Park Lake in The Market Common and one at Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach. The Great Christmas Light Show is closed that night and reopens the 27th, and Winter Wonderland at the Beach opens downtown the same evening.

When does the Great Christmas Light Show open in 2026?

Monday, November 23, at the North Myrtle Beach Park and Sports Complex on Citizens Circle, running through December 30 and closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gate hours are 5:30 to 9:30 in the evening. Santa's Village opens later, on November 27.

When is the Dickens Christmas Show in Myrtle Beach this year?

Thursday, November 12 through Sunday, November 15, 2026, at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center on North Oak Street, in its forty-fifth year. Some older pages still carry a November 14 through 17 run, which belongs to a previous year.

Are the farmers markets still open in November around Myrtle Beach?

The Surfside Beach market is, on Tuesdays at Memorial Park from ten to three, and its season runs to December 15. The Saturday markets at Valor Park and in downtown Conway have not posted a 2026 season end, so it is worth calling before you drive out.

Which of these events are outside the City of Myrtle Beach?

Most of them. The football and basketball are in Conway, the light show and one turkey trot are in North Myrtle Beach, the farmers market is in Surfside Beach, and Brookgreen Gardens is in Georgetown County. Which town a home is in changes its tax bill and its trash pickup, and a mailing address will not settle it. The Grand Strand buyer's guide goes through that.

I am moving to the Grand Strand this winter. Where should I start?

You'll want to start with whether the home is inside a town's limits or out in unincorporated Horry County, because that changes the tax rate on the bill and who picks up the trash. After that, the South Carolina page covers the statewide rules, including the 4 percent legal residence rate that changes a tax bill once you apply for it. Then please give me a call and tell me which towns you are looking in, and I can tell you what a payment there actually looks like.