There will be no Hangout Music Fest or Sand in My Boots festival in Gulf Shores in 2026, the city’s mayor announced Monday evening.
Mayor Robert Craft addressed the situation as a piece of miscellaneous news toward the end of a regular city council meeting.
“The Hangout Music Festival will not occur in 2026,” he said. “We will not have an event in 2026. We are already approving the event in 2027.”
The news comes after an unusual year for the event.
Since 2010 Hangout Fest has been known for an eclectic pop-oriented lineup and, particularly in recent years, a young and diverse audience.
In fall 2024, however, organizers announced that the 2025 event would be renamed Sand in My Boots and curated by country megastar Morgan Wallen.
This was billed as a one-year takeover, but it sold out its 40,000 tickets almost instantly, a feat the Hangout Fest hadn’t pulled off in years.
The May fest, headlined by Wallen, Post Malone and Brooks & Dunn, was a success.
It also was the last covered by a 10-year franchise agreement between the city and festival producers.
As Gulf Shores weighed an extension, officials and members of the public expressed widespread favor for the Sand in My Boots format, which was heavy on country music with some rock, rap and pop mixed in.
The discussion at public forums and city council meetings did not touch on the fact that the Sand in My Boots was conspicuously whiter and straighter than the Hangout audience.
Business owners and others repeatedly described the Sand in My Boots audience as more affluent and better-behaved.
Despite the urgent need to get a new franchise agreement in place, so that organizers could begin the booking process in earnest, it was late July before the council approved one. Craft said Monday that the remaining timetable was too tight.
“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,” he said.
“We will refuse to let them go back to the acts that we’ve had before. So they couldn’t do it and so they canceled the 2026 event.
“They’ve got time now to pursue the type of talent we want on our beaches, to invite the right audience that we want on our beaches, that we proved last time, the last event, that could happen. We’re determined if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen that way again.”
A request for comment from production company AEG Presents was pending as this story was published.
Craft’s implication that the city can and will exercise veto power over the lineup contrasts somewhat with the agreement struck in July.
That document says that the “specific festival name and genre of music” will be selected by event organizers but is subject to review.
It also says the council “understands and agrees that Franchisee has no control over what musical acts are available to perform at the Music Fests and/or who purchases tickets to the Music Fests and therefore it is unable to guarantee a specific audience composition for the Music Fests.”
However, it also requires organizers to use the 2025 event “as a benchmark for the type of event they shall offer in order to attract a similar audience to provide a positive reputational and economic impact for the community.” Another incentive comes in the fact that it’s a limited two-year deal, with approval for the 2027 event contingent on how much the city liked the 2026 edition.
