MYRTLE BEACH — From where she sits, Chris Barker hasn’t seen it all.
She didn’t see Chris Young late Friday sit on the edge of the stage, hand over his heart, talk about grieving a friend’s death before singing “Drowning.”
She won’t see Jelly Roll or Kid Rock.
She didn’t see Carrie Underwood in 2024 lead an epic “Before He Cheats” massive sing-along during a late-night downpour.
She didn’t see Kenny Chesney stroll around the stage in 2023 wearing a blue tank top and jeans singing “When the Sun Goes Down.”
She didn’t see all the Carolina Country Music Fest memorable moments of the of the last six years, but she’s been closer than most from her vantage point behind the stage. There, on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk at nearly center stage, she sits by her husband Henry in her own beach chair, with her own cooler and her feet propped up. No one is bumping into her, climbing over her, losing their balance and tumbling in her lap.
From here, the couple gets a front row seat to a black screen zip tied to a chain link fence and a giant screen blocking the back of the stage.
“We started going in about six, seven years ago. It was too hot to sit there and stick to people, sweaty people,” she laughed. “We did try it, but then we figured out we could sit out here, enjoy the music and not worry about the crowd in there. And, you know, we get it for free and enjoy the music more. This is our happy place. It doesn’t matter that we don’t get to see them. It sounds perfect back here. We really don’t have to see them.”
Henry the husband laughed that the only drawback is when the sun goes down and the cockroaches come out.
“Y’all have big ones down here,” the man from near Cleveland, Ohio, said. “They live under here, right where we’re sitting. As soon as it gets dark, they all come out and they are big. Big. I don’t think they are coming out for the music, but I don’t know.”
The Barkers and the bugs aren’t the only ones getting the festival vibes for free.
The line to get in The Bowery tangles with the VIP line to get in the festival. A crowd spills out of Ocean Front Bar & Grill onto the boardwalk. A guitar strummer sings cover songs at Dirty Don’s Oyster Bar. People squeeze into open spots at Peaches Corner and crook their necks to see the big screens showing the singers sing.
Folks with cowboy hats and short skirts line the steps of Ripley’s Believe it or Not! and families huddle together on the closed Ocean Boulevard from Plyler Park to the festival entrances.
Several beachwear store window ledges double as benches or steps for people nodding to the music.
CCMF, as most call it with the initials brandished on their shirts and straw cowboy hats, has grown since its inception in 2015.
The four-day festival headliners then were Eric Church, Lady Antebellum and Rascal Flatts. About 20,000 people crowded each night onto the 11-acre tract that once held the Myrtle Beach Pavilion and Amusement Park located between Ocean Boulevard and Kings Highway between 8th and 9th Avenues North.
It’s in the same location as always but with about 35,000 people each night. It has always sold out quickly as the headliner announcements are sprinkled throughout the year.
The Davisson Brothers of West Virginia have played at every CCMF, and South Carolina’s own Darrius Rucker has graced the stage twice — 2017 and 2021.
The Barkers said they aren’t a pair of faces in the crowd shots, but they can pick themselves out easily from the drone footage of each show that pans toward the ocean.
Tony Goodermote only shows up on his friends’ posts, he said from his third-floor balcony at the Midtown Inn off 8th Avenue North.
The mid-century style building is the last motel standing on the southwestern side of the festival grounds since the city bought and demolished most of the property on the 8th Avenue North side.
Goodermote balances his weight, gripping the cinderblock honeycomb balcony as he bounces and calls it dancing to music coming from a stage he squints to see.
The balcony overlooks the portable toilets lining the field that gives way to vendor booths and a people-thick swatch facing the main stage.
“I can hear it all from here. It’s better here,” the Myrtle Beach resident said, raising his voice as though he were on the festival grounds. “I don’t know where I was 10 years ago, but I’ve been here for eight years. Eight years, here. We get the same rooms. We can cook and have our own bathroom. We get the show. We don’t have to get tickets.”
Lynn Youmell, Goodermote’s girlfriend, has been coming with him for four years.
“We don’t get rained on either,” she added, pouring shots into little Solo cups. “It’s free except for the room. But it’s better. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it. I don’t want them to because it would be too crowded up here, but it is perfect. I’d do it if I didn’t do it. You know?”
Tony Mizzell isn’t looking for a free spot. He’s looking for his car, the Santee resident said wandering through the parking lots that are scattered around construction equipment east of Kings Highway.
“Why wouldn’t we come?” he said standing with his son, Tony Mizzell Jr. “We drove in from Santee, South Carolina. Why wouldn’t we come here? It’s the biggest music festival in the world.”
Maybe not the world, with about 140,000 over four days. Summerfest in Wisconsin has more than 800,000 attendees and SXSW in Austin, Texas, has more than 340,000 attendees. But CCMF does beat out Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tenn., by just about doubling the attendance figures.
“It don’t matter,” Mizzell said sipping on his Dos Equis lager while Conner Smith’s songs could be heard several blocks away from the massive speakers lining the stage. “We come for the live music, the fellowship, God and Jesus. I admit it. I’m a sinner. We all are. But this a great place to come."
