Annual Sun Fun changing location, operation

Lisa Fleisher

Sun Fun as Myrtle Beach has known it is over.

The annual kickoff to the summer season, which has been held for more than 50 years downtown by the beach, will move to what some have called the city's new downtown - the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.

Downtown businesses asked the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday to fund fireworks and concerts throughout the season, instead of giving the economy a one-weekend booster shot by keeping the festival downtown.

"This one is probably the single biggest change to Sun Fun in its history," chamber President Brad Dean said.

The Sun Fun Festival's move away from Ocean Boulevard is just one more major shift for the downtown area after The Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park closed in 2006. Last year, the festival did away with its annual parade.

"I'm sad to see it go, but the whole Sun Fun Festival has gotten weaker and weaker and weaker as the years have gone on," said Jonathan Staton, president of the Oceanfront Merchants Association.

The association had been unsuccessfully trying to get funding for its fireworks series, and downtown business owners were faced with a choice: one weekend festival, or money for events all summer long.

They say they are trying to make sure tourists still find reasons to come to their area, with the Pavilion gone and other major attractions that have opened this year, such as Hard Rock Park and The Market Common, a shopping and residential complex on the former base.

Some city leaders mourned the loss of a beachside festival that evoked nostalgic feelings of traditional family fun at the beach with games, fines decades ago for people wearing long pants instead of shorts and contestants smiling and posing during bikini pageants.

The Sun Fun Festival on the Boulevard also provided the background for the 1989 movie "Shag," starring Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda, set in the '60s.

"To me, Sun Fun and Ocean Boulevard go together," Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes said. "It's like apple pie and ice cream. But if that's what the merchants have decided they want to do, then who are we to say different?"

Staton, who owns Bumstead's Pub and Dagwood's Deli on Mr. Joe White Avenue, said his association could not see spending so much money on one event in one weekend.

"All it's going to be is Dora the Explorer, a soap opera star, an old 'Saved By The Bell' guy and an ex-football star," Staton said, referring to past and suggested celebrity appearances during Sun Fun. "It's just not that much bang for the buck."

With a budget of more than $200,000, including $85,000 from the city, the association will put on concerts on Tuesdays and Fridays, fireworks on Wednesdays and street performers on Sundays, including a two-person juggling act, a balloon artist, a stilt walker and a living statue.

The chamber will still organize events under the Sun Fun name, with concerts, jet ski contests and appearances by celebrities, including American Idol winner Ruben Studdard.

Many of the events will be at Grand Park across from The Market Common.

"Change and doing things differently is always tough," City Councilman Wayne Gray said.

"Just because we've always done something a particular way doesn't make it right or the best way."