The Coves at Smith Mountain Lake Concerts

The best live music venue around Southern Virginia! The beauty of the lake and the setting make this a perfect spot to enjoy live music.

We had the good fortune of seeing Ricky Scaggs and Kentucky Thunder at The Coves. Such a beautiful venue set on a hillside overlooking Smith Mountain Lake to the right and the stage to the left. Great music, great venue, great food and beverages! I can't wait to go back!

This place popped up in my social media feeds with a concert I wanted to go to last-minute. It is a new venue, it seems from talking to locals, tucked into the hills above and overlooking a portion of Smith Mountain Lake. It was a beautiful and fairly intimate setting with easy nearby parking. Both chair and lawn seating (different prices), and it sounds like they only hold concerts every few weeks or so during the warmer months (I was there in mid-November, their last concert of the season, and it was cold but since you can bring blankets etc, everyone was bundled and having a great time!) Lots of portapotties with a least one handicapped one by the chair seating down front. Sloped terrain, no stairs that I saw anywhere. Several food truck vendors, tho they only advertised one BBQ place, and they didn’t balk when I brought in my own vegan, gluten free meal to enjoy on the lawn. Turns out they did have a vegan bean chili, which I would have gotten if it had been advertised. Also, all tips and some of the food proceeds go to local charities. The place is staffed by local volunteers and the purpose of the place seems to be to pitch the mountain lake retreat community of the Coves, but, yeah, that was minimal advertising and I would totally live there if I had the $ and they kept bringing in great bands (I saw the Indigo Girls and someone else said they’d seen Waylon Jennings band earlier in the summer) for cozy, well-priced seats. Well done, Coves! (One thing to note—there is NO signage anywhere on approach that you’re going to the right place until you get there. You’ll reach a No Outlet street on GPS, but keep going and you’ll run into it in another mile or so.)

Such a nice venue with an intimate nature vibe. The concert was also wonderful. #CharlesEsten Just a few suggestions: Keep prices consistent. Bottled water at the food and beverage stand was $2.00. Bottled water at the beer and wine stand was $5.00 Offer sweet items or perhaps a sweets vendor. Ice cream, shaved ice, or even cake/cupcakes would have been a nice addition to the evening.

Field seating is not great. Venue does not allow outside water bottles, which can be insufferable in the heat. Acoustics were great, though.