Do We Beach House

One of Southwest Florida’s signature music events is back this week. The Island Hopper Songwriter Fest opens Friday, Sept. 18 and runs through Sunday, Sept. 27, with more than 60 free performances by Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) songwriters spread across Captiva, Cape Coral, downtown Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach.

Fort Myers Beach is one of the four host areas, and the island’s venues carry a good share of the schedule — DiamondHead, the Pink Shell, Margaritaville, The Whale, The Lighthouse, Yucatan, Bayside Park, The Mound House and Matanzas on the Bay among them. The format is what makes it work: intimate rooms and outdoor decks where songwriters play their own songs and tell the stories behind them, rather than a big-stage spectacle.

Headliner Edwin McCain plays The Westin Cape Coral Resort on Monday, Sept. 21. The festival closes with the Pink Shell pool party finale on Sunday, Sept. 27, featuring Michael Ray. The bulk of the schedule is free and open to the public, and the full lineup is posted through the festival’s official schedule.

Ten days of live music in island venues is a good measure of how far this stretch of coast has come — and an easy reason to be on the beach in late September.

Source: Beach Talk Radio News — Songwriter Festival Begins This Weekend.