No Hangout Music Fest or Sand In My Boots in 2026

Photo Credit: Hangout Music Fest

There will be no Hangout Music Fest or Sand in My Boots festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 2026, the city’s mayor confirmed on Monday night.

Mayor Robert Craft of Gulf Shores, Alabama, announced toward the end of a regular city council meeting on Monday evening that the Hangout Music Fest, which was renamed Sand in My Boots this year, will not take place in 2026. However, the city is already approving the event for 2027.

News of the gap year comes at an unusual time in the event’s life. Since 2010, Hangout Fest has been known for its eclectic pop-focused lineup, especially in recent years, drawing in a young and diverse crowd. But in late 2024, organizers announced that the 2025 edition would be renamed Sand in My Boots, and curated by country superstar Morgan Wallen.

While this was billed as a one-year takeover, Sand in My Boots sold out its 40,000 tickets almost immediately—a feat Hangout Fest hadn’t pulled off for years. Sand in My Boots, which kicked off in May, was headlined by Wallen, Post Malone, and Brooks & Dunn, and was considered a resounding success.

But it was also the last year covered by a 10-year franchise agreement with the city. While city officials weighed options on an extension, officials and members of the public expressed widespread approval for the new Sand in My Boots format, which was much heavier on country music than its predecessor.

By the time the council approved a new franchise agreement, it was late July, and too late to ensure the festival could go off without a hitch next year.

“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,” said Mayor Craft. “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 cancelled the 2026 event.”

“They’ve got some 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,” he added. “We’re determined if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen that way again.”

The elephant in the room is that Sand in My Boots was noticeably “whiter and straighter” than the Hangout audience. Business owners and others repeatedly told city officials that the Sand in My Boots audience was “more affluent and better-behaved.”

That said, the mayor’s implication that the city would exercise veto power over the festival’s lineup contrasts marginally with the agreement struck with organizers in July. The document states that the “specific festival name and genre of music” will be selected by event organizers, but is subject to review.

However, the document also requires organizers to use the 2025 event as a “benchmark” for the type of event they should offer in the future “in order to attract a similar audience to provide a positive reputational and economic impact for the community.” The new agreement is a two-year deal, which contrasts with the previous decade-long deal, with the second year contingent on how much the city approves of the previous year.