2024 Mississippi Songwriters Festival wraps after 130 performances

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) – The final performances of the 2024 Mississippi Songwriters Festival wrapped up the 15th annual event Sunday.

Around 130 acts from Mississippi and beyond, including a trio from Norway, performed at 12 venues in Ocean Springs and Gautier over four days. The South Mississippi festival began in 2010 and has grown larger than organizers ever expected.

“In the beginning, we didn’t want to get too big, but somewhere along the line we missed the boat on that one,” said board member Darwin Nelson. “Because we’re in so many venues, that just allows us to have more songwriters.”

The wide array of venues comes with pros and cons for the festival, Nelson explained, because it offers more chances for songwriters to get their music out to more people, but it also comes with audio engineering challenges. Still, it happens each year thanks to a dedicated group.

“It’s a pretty big four-day production, but we feel like we’ve gotten pretty good at it. There’s a lot of moving parts, but when you’re passionate about something, you just want to make it the best you can, and that’s what we try to do. We don’t want to let them down and we want to make it even better next year.”

See a spelling or grammar error in this story? Report it to our team HERE.

Copyright 2024 WLOX. All rights reserved.