Cocoa Beach Songwriter Festival 2026: Free Music Downtown

Last October, Cocoa Beach's songwriter festival saved its biggest names for a ticketed Saturday night. The "Heavy Hitters Main Event" played the convention center at the Radisson Resort at the Port, and MusicRow's 2025 lineup announcement pointed readers to a ticket page. That 2025 edition ran October 17 through 19 as the Cocoa Beach Hit Songwriter Fest. Cumulus Media and its local stations, including 107.1 A1A and 102.7 The HitKicker, presented it alongside Downtown Cocoa Beach Main Street.

This year the festival has a new name, Heart Behind the Hits, and runs October 16 through 18. Cocoa Beach Main Street calls the weekend free. The festival's own site carries a "Free Admission" banner, and none of the 2026 listings show a ticketed show or a resort stage. Every set this year happens inside a downtown bar or on the City Hall courtyard stage. That puts the whole weekend within a few blocks of Minutemen Causeway, at no cost.

Seven Downtown Venues

The festival's venue page lists seven hosts. Main Street's line about "live music across six venues" fits the six bars, with the courtyard as the extra stage.

Five of the seven sit on Minutemen Causeway or the South Atlantic Avenue end of it. Hunkerdown Hideaway and Category 5 belong to the same three-venue complex as Tropics Cocktail Bar at 1 S. Atlantic Ave. Tropics is a Main Street member, but it is not on the festival's venue list.

Friday Opens on a Closed Causeway

The weekend begins with Friday Fest on October 16 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. Visit Space Coast reports that Minutemen Causeway closes to traffic for vendors, food trucks and beer tents, with Nashville songwriters on the stage at City Hall.

Friday's indoor set is at Category 5 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Emily Henline, Dillon Dixon and Collins Horton share that hour, which overlaps the middle of the street party outside.

Saturday at the Atlantic Avenue End

Saturday has the most posted detail, and it comes from the THC complex's entertainment calendar, not the festival site. That calendar lists two strands of songwriter sets. One is labeled for Category 5. The other is listed as the "Heart Behind the Hits Songwriter Experience." The two strands alternate start times all afternoon:

1. 12:00–12:45 p.m., Category 5: Terri Jo Box and CJ Field
2. 1:15 p.m., Songwriter Experience: Juna & Joey with Andrew Bloom
3. 2:00–2:45 p.m., Category 5: Dan Smalley and Trent Tomlinson
4. 3:15 p.m., Songwriter Experience: Carvin Walls with Collins Horton
5. 4:00–4:45 p.m., Category 5: Lil Skinny and Dillon Dixon
6. 5:15 p.m., Songwriter Experience: Trick Savage with Cameron Havens

No two sets share a start time, so all six can be heard in one afternoon at one address cluster. The same calendar follows the last songwriter set with Karalyn & Dawn Patrol from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. It also says schedules are subject to change.

Who Wrote What

Most of these writers are names on liner notes rather than on marquees. The credits below come from published music-industry sources and show who co-wrote each song and who recorded it. They do not mean every song was a chart hit.

• Terri Jo Box has had cuts with Cody Johnson on "God Bless The Boy (Cori's Song)" and with Lainey Wilson on "Those Boots (Deddy's Song)" and "Hillbilly Hippie." MusicRow notes that both Wilson songs appeared on Wilson's Grammy-winning Bell Bottom Country. Her credits also include Ashley McBryde's "American Scandal" and "Bible and a .44," and "Dear Old Sun," written with Miranda Lambert and Gwen Sebastian.
• Dan Smalley and Trick Savage both co-wrote "Velvet Red," recorded by Ashley McBryde. Smalley also co-wrote "On and On," recorded by Joe Nichols.
• Trent Tomlinson is credited by The HitKicker with "Damn Strait," "In Case You Didn't Know" and "One Wing In The Fire."
• Andrew Bloom co-wrote "Love You To Death," recorded by Julia Cole, whose deluxe edition MusicRow covered on October 9, 2026.

Box, Smalley, Tomlinson, Bloom, Savage, Walls, Horton, Dixon, Henline and Lil Skinny all appeared on the 2025 lineup. In 2025, some of those names were part of a lineup that also had a ticketed resort show. This year the same group plays bars on Atlantic Avenue in the early afternoon. The 2026 sponsors appear on the festival site only as image panels, so this year's backers are not confirmed in text.

What Isn't Posted Yet

The festival site has a schedule page for each of its seven venues, but the set lists are posted only as images. Times for City Hall Courtyard, Coconuts on the Beach, The Alibi, Dirty Birds and The Office can be read on heartbehindthehits.com but not in a text listing. The Sunday Funday page is posted the same way.

Three other details are still open:

• Saturday street party. Main Street advertises it but gives no hours or street limits. The only road-closure detail published so far is for Friday.
• Sunday end time. Main Street's calendar shows the festival running from Saturday, October 17 at 10:00 a.m. to Sunday, October 18 at 2:00 p.m. One tourism listing gives the dates as October 16–17.
• Parking. No festival-specific parking or shuttle instructions have been published.

After the Songwriters Leave

The festival opens a downtown calendar that runs every week or two through Christmas Eve. Here is what Cocoa Beach Main Street has posted so far. Where its own pages disagree, the table shows both versions.

One waterfront restaurant is missing from the fall calendar. Squid Lips at 2200 S. Orlando Ave. is closed for the rest of the season. Florida Today reported on September 16 that the restaurant is aiming to reopen in late December. In the meantime, the restaurant is pointing customers to its locations at 1477 Pineapple Ave. in Melbourne and 1660 N. Indian River Dr. in Sebastian. Between now and December, the main downtown events in Cocoa Beach are the ones on Minutemen Causeway.

If your home is a short walk from Minutemen Causeway and you're curious what that location is worth, Jamie Dandridge and the team can prepare a local, data-backed valuation. Request a Home Valuation, and enjoy the music downtown.