The beach festival in Gulf Shores has changed its name, sold out, been cancelled and been provisionally approved again, all within about eighteen months. Most pages you will find are stuck somewhere in the middle of that.
Here is the state of play, because almost every page you will find on this is out of date.
The short version
- Hangout Music Festival ran on the Gulf Shores public beach for years and no longer exists under that name.
- In 2025 it was rebranded as Sand In My Boots, presented by Morgan Wallen, and sold out at roughly 40,000 tickets.
- There was no festival in 2026. The city cancelled it.
- The city has approved a festival for 2027, but the lineup, dates and promoter details are not settled. Approval is not the same as an announcement.
What happened to Hangout Fest
Hangout Music Festival was the anchor event on this beach for more than a decade, a three-day May festival staged on the sand at the foot of AL 59, next to The Hangout restaurant. It brought tens of thousands of people to a town of around 15,000, and for one weekend a year it reshaped everything about how Gulf Shores worked.
In 2025 the event was taken over and rebranded by country artist Morgan Wallen as Sand In My Boots, with a lineup that included Post Malone, Brooks & Dunn and Bailey Zimmerman alongside Wallen. It sold all 40,000 tickets.
Why 2026 did not happen
This is the part that surprises people, because it was not a permitting fight or a noise complaint. It was a calendar problem.
Gulf Shores mayor Robert Craft put it plainly: organizers AEG Presents applied too late to book talent at the standard the city required. In his words, "We delayed too long, or they did, in their application to be able to get the kind of acts that we required them to have to be successful in 2026." Headline artists at that level commit to tours a year or more ahead. Once that window closed, a 2026 edition matching 2025 was not possible, so the city cancelled rather than accept a weaker one.
Worth noting for anyone judging the city's motives: the reason the bar was set there is that the 2025 country-leaning crowd behaved better and spent more than previous years. The city was protecting an event it wants, not killing one it resents.
What is actually confirmed for 2027
The city has approved a 2027 festival. Craft has said "We are already approving the event in 2027," conditional on organizers delivering a country-focused lineup comparable to 2025 and having enough runway to book it.
What is not confirmed as of this writing: the festival's name, its exact dates, the promoter and the lineup. You will find third-party sites listing a specific May 2027 weekend. Treat those as guesses until the organizers announce.
What this means if you are booking
If you want to go to the festival: do not book non-refundable travel around an unannounced date. Wait for the announcement, then book immediately, because festival weekend inventory on this beach goes in days and prices roughly double.
If you want to avoid the festival: a May trip in 2027 is worth checking against the announcement once it lands. Historically the affected weekend is mid-to-late May, and the effect is concentrated in Gulf Shores beachfront rather than across the whole coast. Orange Beach, ten miles east, feels a fraction of it.
If you are travelling in May 2026 or already past it: nothing to plan around. It did not happen.
What a festival weekend does to this beach
Worth understanding whichever side of it you are on, because the effect is bigger than the crowd number suggests.
Gulf Shores is a town of roughly 15,000 people. A sold-out festival puts 40,000 more inside a few blocks of beachfront for three days. AL 59, the single road that carries everyone from the highway to the sand, becomes the bottleneck for the entire operation. Public beach parking in the festival footprint is closed or reserved. Restaurants near the foot of 59 run at capacity from lunchtime.
The practical effects, in rough order of how much they will affect your trip:
- Rates. Festival weekend is the single highest-priced weekend of the year on Gulf Shores beachfront, ahead of July 4th. Minimum stays lengthen too, usually to three or four nights.
- Traffic. Budget double the usual time for any drive that crosses AL 59 between about noon and midnight.
- Parking. The paid public accesses nearest the venue are the first to close.
- Noise. Real, but geographically narrow. Sound carries along the beach rather than inland.
Ten miles east in Orange Beach, most of this is somebody else's weekend. That is the standard local move for anyone who wants a normal beach trip in festival week, and it is why we have never treated the two towns as interchangeable.
Three homes, one direct rate
The Hangout House, Gulf Shores. Sleeps 12, four bedroom suites each with its own bath, walk to the beach and to The Hangout.
Salty Shells, Orange Beach. Sleeps 10, covered porch over the pond, community pool a short walk away. Dog friendly.
Little Lagoon, Gulf Shores. Sleeps 8 on quiet West Beach, deeded beach access 351 feet away. Dog friendly.
Book direct with code MLC for 10% off. No booking site in the middle, and if anything comes up you are talking to the people who own the house.
See all three homesThe one that is still on every year
The festival comes and goes. The Hangout itself, the restaurant the festival was named after, is open year round at the foot of AL 59, and stays busy. It is loud, family-heavy, has a sand volleyball court and live music most nights in season, and is a genuinely good time if you go in with the right expectations.
The Hangout House sits 0.8 miles from it, which is the walk home you want after a long evening there rather than a drive.
If you are trying to time a trip generally, our month-by-month guide covers what each part of the year actually feels like here.