Issue 34, May 9, 1997
The Blue Crab Festival will be held this Saturday and Sunday on the Little River waterfront. Beside the namesake seafood, there will be music and arts and crafts and activities for the kids. Call 803-249-6604.
The House of Blues had a terrific grand opening, with co-owner Dan Akyroyd joined by Jim Belushi and John Goodman on hand to perform as the Blues Brothers. Also performing was James Brown. Alan Thicke and Alice Cooper also attended (they were in town for a celebrity golf tournament the next day), as was South Carolina's Governor Beasley, decked out in leather. Everyone arrived on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
In addition to the main performing venue at the House of Blues, regular music performances are held at the club's BB Blues Bar, Sugar Shack, and Late Night Dance Club.
Broadway at the Beach has resumed its Celebrity Square Street Party every Friday evening. In addition, Steppenwolf will be in concert on May 17, and Morris Day and The Time on May 25.
Looking ahead a little further, this year's Vivace arts festival (October 17 - 26) will feature the musical 'Carousel', 'MacBeth', Gilbert and Sullivan music, concerts by Vocal Edition and the Coastal Carolina Gospel Choir, the Rhythm and Schmooze tap dancing troupe, and a creek tour at Brookgreen Gardens.
The Family Kingdom Amusement Park on U.S. 17 Business at 4th Avenue South (the one with the big wooden roller coaster), has a major new ride. 'The Great Pistolero Roundup' is a $700,000, 4,000-square-foot 'dark ride' (similar to most of the rides at Disney World). Each rider has a toy gun to shoot at targets along the way. Cost is $3.
There is talk of a large 500 room luxury hotel being built next to the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. Officials have long said this would be a major boost to convention business.
The Sun Fun Festival will go on as usual this year from June 6 to 9, but there has been a refocusing of the concept. Some events, such as sand sculpture clinics, will be held throughout the summer, and there will be no celebrity grand marshal. At Broadway at the Beach, the Last Real Beach Party will feature the Tams, the Drifters, and the Swinging Medallions on June 7.
Several studies of the festival have been done in the past. Some people find the sandcastles and watermelon eating and bikini contests a little old-fashioned, and whether the event even brings many people to the strand these days is debatable. In the 50's, early June was quiet, but it's not now. In any case, Sun Fun will remain pretty much as is for the time being.
Sam Snead's Grille is open along Restaurant Row. Grilled items are the specialty (grilled vegetables are even available), as well as seafood, steaks, ribs, and chicken.
North Myrtle Beach is widening Ocean Boulevard in its Windy Hill section, and has asked the small predominantly black town of Atlantic Beach if it would like to have Ocean Boulevard connect through. Back in the days of racial segregation, the road was deliberately left unconnected at both ends of Atlantic Beach to further separate the races. These days a continuous road would greatly help traffic congestion, especially during Black Biker weekend on Memorial Day. However, some Atlantic Beach residents worry it would alter the town's character too much.
Homeowner's insurance for beach areas has shot up as much as 300 percent this year, partly due to the continuing threat of hurricanes. Lawmakers have taken note of this, but no legislation has been introduced yet.
A note about the Myrtle Beach on the Net web site (http://www.mbsc.com) that is associated with this newsletter: an inappropriate advertisement was inadvertently placed on the site for a short while. Several of the banner ads near the top of the page are 'link exchange' placements, where different web sites advertise each other. Our site is supposed to be in the 'PG' category, but one of the organizations mistakenly placed us in a category that includes ads for X-rated sites. The actual ad placement is done randomly by a third-party server, which is why we were unaware of what had happened (until the other day when I visited the site and was very surprised to see a nude woman in the ad!). If you've visited the site you know we have no problem with swimsuit photos, but nudity is completely unacceptable, and I apologize if anyone was offended. The advertisement has been removed from the web page.
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